26       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

Amid  all  the  variations  and  vicissitudes  of 
Jesus'  life,  with  all  its  lights  and  shadows,  He 
walked  undeviatingly  in  one  straight  path  from 
the  Jordan  to  Calvary.  Expediency  found  with 
Him  no  place  with  her  beseeching  subtleties. 
The  consideration  of  consequence  exercised  no 
guiding  or  repressive  hand. 

We  have  a  beautiful  prophetic  gleam  in  His 
young  boyhood,  of  which,  I  doubt  not,  there 
were  many.  "  Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about 
My  Father's  business  ?"  The  baptism  in  the 
Jordan  was  His  maturer  consecration.  In  the 
wilderness  we  see  His  ultimate  decision.  At 
Caesarea  Philippi  came  the  open  avowal.  At 
the  transfiguration  came  the  frank  prophecy  of 
His  inevitable  human  fate.  Now  He  is  on  His 
way  to  Jerusalem  and  He  knows  where  He  is 
going.  It  is  evident  that  He  saw  it  and  felt  it 
all  along.  "  For  this  cause  was  I  born/'  "  To 
this  end  came  I  into  the  world."  And  again 
upon  another  occasion,  "  My  time  is  not  yet 
come." 

One  meaning  of  the  cross,  perhaps  the  mean- 
ing of  the  cross,  is  that  at  Calvary  we  witness 
the  fulfillment  of  the  most  heroic  life  the  world 
has  ever  seen.  This  moral  Christ  is  King  of 
kings  and  Lord  of  lords.  He  has  been  for  two 
thousand  years  standing  in  the  midst  of  the 
world,  the  enrichment  of  its  thought,  the  sov- 
ereign embodiment  of  its  ideals.  The  moral 


The  Imperial  Spirit  of  Jesus  27 

world  has  been  made  by  Him,  and  His  supreme 
example  is  the  alluring  and  uneffaceable  picture 
upon  the  walls  of  human  memory.  The  surest 
approach  to  the  Divine  Christ,  the  Son  of  God, 
is  by  the  following  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  Son 
of  Man. 

So  while  it  is  true  that  the  thought  of  Christ 
helps  me  as  I  think  of  Him  in  His  relation  to 
eternal  Being,  as  the  revelation  of  the  heart  of 
God,  it  is  also  true  that  He  helps  me  as  He 
reveals  my  prophetic  to  my  untrue  self,  as  He 
shames  me  in  His  effulgent  noble  light  and  in- 
spires me  by  His  nobility.  There  are  other 
values  to  Jesus,  but  of  supreme  value  is  the 
imitableness  and  the  reproducibleness  of  His 
character.  I  wish  that  with  the  brush  of  a  great 
artist  I  could  paint  a  new  picture  of  Him.  I 
would  paint  Him  as  a  young  man  with  His  face 
turned  towards  Jerusalem.  I  would  make  a 
series  of  pictures.  I  would  paint  Him  first  as 
a  frank,  open-faced  boy  in  the  temple ;  and  out 
in  a  distant  background  I  would  put  the  cross 
in  its  shadowy  outlines.  Then  I  would  paint 
Him  in  the  wilderness,  under  the  stress  of  the 
temptation  to  kneel  down  and  worship  evil  for 
the  sake  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  world.  I 
would  picture  the  face  of  the  young  man  looking 
away  again  towards  that  distant  cross,  now  a 
little  clearer.  I  would  picture  Him  on  the  dusty 
Galilean  road  with  the  disciples,  some  of  them 


EX  LIBRIS 


Spiritual  Culture 
and   Social   Service 


Spiritual  Culture 
and  Social  Service 


By 
CHARLES  S.  MACFARLAND 

|t 

Secretary ,  The  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of 
Christ  in  America 


NEW  YORK          CHICAGO          TORONTO 
Fleming   H.   Revell   Company 

LONDON  AND  EDINBURGH 


Copyright,  1912,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  100  Princes  Street 


In  Affectionate  Remembrance 

To  the  people  of  Maverick  Chapel,  East 
Boston,  Massachusetts,  the  Home  Mission 
,  where  I  began  my  ministry  ;  the  Congre- 
gational Church  in  the  little  village  of 
Bethany,  Connecticut,  where  1  was-  or- 
dained;  the  Maplewood  Congregational 
Church  of  Maiden,  Massachusetts,  where 
I  had  six  years  of  joyous  service ;  and 
the  First  Congregational  Church  of 
South  Norwalk,  Connecticut,  where,  in 
a  democratic,  industrial  community,  I 
was  trained  for  my  present  work 


254527 


Contents 

FOREWORD 9 

THE  PATTERN  IN  THE  MOUNT 

I.  THE  IMPERIAL  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS     .        .       23 

SOCIAL  REDEMPTION 

II.  TRUE  AND  FALSE  CULTURE   ...  45 

III.  REJOICING  IN  TRUTH     ....  62 

IV.  THE  HOPELESSNESS  OF  GODLESSNESS      .  69 

V.  THE  UNIVERSAL  LAW  OF  SERVICE  .         .  81 

VI.  THE  LIFE  MORE  THAN  MEAT        .        .  91 

VII.  THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  UNSEEN      .        .  101 

THE  CULTURE  OF  SELF 

VIII.  ACQUIREMENT  BY  RENUNCIATION  .        .121 

IX.  OUT  OF  GREAT  TRIBULATION         .        .131 

X.  GOING  BEYOND  DUTY    .        .        .        .     1 39 

XI.  THE  UNHEARD  ANGEL  .         .        .        .149 

XII.  THE  MEASURE  OF  RELIGIOUS  AFFECTION     158 

XIII.  THE  UPWARD  LOOK  AND  THE  DOWN- 

WARD REACH 168 

XIV.  THE  CULTURE  OF  THE  HOME         .        .179 

XV.  THE  UNKNOWN  VISITATION  .        .        .196 

XVI.  THE  EVERLASTING  REALITY  OF  RELIGION     214 


Foreword 

UPON  making  the  interchange  of  the  work 
of  the  local  pastorate  for  that  of  the 
Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of 
Christ  in  America  and  its  Social  Service  Com- 
mission, it  seems  appropriate  that  the  writer 
should  attempt  to  order  and  set  forth  his  thought 
upon  the  relation  between  religious  devotion  and 
humanitarian  impulse ;  spiritual  conservation  and 
moral  passion.  This  book  consists  of  recent 
utterances  in  which  the  author  has  sought,  in 
guiding  the  thought  of  his  congregations,  to  set 
before  them  the  sympathetic  unity  and  essential 
identity  of  spiritual  culture  and  social  service. 

Lest  the  first  section  of  the  book,  entitled 
"  The  Pattern  in  the  Mount,"  should  seem 
partial  and  inadequate,  the  reader  is  reminded 
that  this  is  in  no  sense  an  attempt  to  give  com- 
mensurate treatment  to  the  person  of  Christ,  but 
simply  to  portray  the  Master  as  the  living  historic 
example  for  human  life  and  service  and  of  the 
noble  spirit  in  which  that  service  should  be 
rendered. 

In  his  earlier  devotional,  theological  and  ex- 
egetical  books,  "The  Spirit  Christlike,"  "  The 
Infinite  Affection  "  and  "  Jesus  and  the  Prophets," 

9 


10       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

the  author  has  attempted  to  interpret  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  the  Son  of  Man  as  Jesus  the  Christ  the 
Son  of  God,  especially  in  the  chapters  of  "  The 
Spirit  Christlike"  entitled  "God  With  Us," 
"  God  Within  Us,"  "  The  Universal  Incarnation," 
and  in  "  The  Infinite  Affection,"  the  sections  on 
44  The  Person  of  Christ"  and  "The  Sovereignty 
of  Christ."  These  former  utterances  are  the 
essential  background  and  suggest  the  enduring 
impulse  of  his  social  creed  and  faith. 

"  The  reverent  man  who  seeks,  as  men  will 
seek,  and  ought  to  seek,  an  adequate  interpreta- 
tion of  Jesus  to  the  intellect — be  at  the  same  time 
his  heart  and  motive  pure — will  find  himself 
lifted  beyond  the  humanity  in  which  he  stands, 
will  find  himself  upon  the  height  of  Tabor,  gazing 
at  a  countenance  transfigured  before  him,  at  a 
face  which  shines  as  the  sun,  at  garments  white 
as  the  light ;  while  the  cloud  of  divine  glory  over- 
shadows him,  and  in  his  ears  resounds  the  voice, 
'  This  is  My  beloved  Son  :  Hear  ye  Him/  The 
solitary,  perfect,  moral  human  light  of  these  two 
thousand  years  is  clouded  with  ambiguous  shad- 
ows, the  nature  of  the  Infinite  unknown,  the  faith 
of  men  and  all  their  moral  life  uncertain,  the  goal 
of  their  achievement  is  unsure,  and  the  whole 
present  scheme  of  human  progress  fails,  unless, 
with  an  authority  that  is  divine,  with  an  ideal 
that  is  the  form  of  God,  Jesus  Christ  is  God 
with  us. 


Foreword  1 1 

"  To  apprehend  the  moral  magnitude  and  con- 
template the  spiritual  force  of  Jesus  is  the  solita- 
rily supreme  desire  of  the  mind  of  man,  and  to 
appropriate  His  life  the  loftiest  endeavour  of  a 
human  soul.  In  Him  the  Infinite  is  reachable  to 
human  contemplation.  He  is  God  with  us. 
Through  Him  attainable  to  human  aspiration, 
He  is  God  within  us.  The  Son  of  God,  the  wit- 
ness and  the  earnest  of  the  heavenly  childhood 
of  the  race,  He  is  the  sovereign  possession  of 
mankind. 

"  The  person,  then,  of  Jesus  calls  for  the  horn* 
age  of  the  race.  He  is  an  eternal  contrast  to  the 
human  life  to  which  He  came  and  comes.  The 
difference  between  His  sinlessness  and  human 
sin  is  an  eternal  moral  contrast.  Against  the 
sombre  background  of  our  darkened  human 
lives  the  perfection  of  His  spirit  is  as  the  sun 
at  night.  His  exhaustless  person  calls  for  a 
supereminent,  unique  distinction.  His  eternal 
contrast  between  sinlessness  and  sin  is  the  eter- 
nal contrast  between  God  and  man,  and  when 
men  bow  the  knee  to  Jesus  Christ  they  worship 
and  adore  the  God  whom  He  ineffably  reveals. 

"  The  spiritual  consciousness  of  Christ  is  the 
eternally  enduring  object  of  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  men.  Thus,  in  Him  was  introduced  into  the 
world,  not  merely  a  new  decalogue,  not  only  a 
restored  prophetism,  but  an  absolutely  new  order 
of  life.  The  better  moral,  spiritual  order  of  the 


12       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

world,  so  far  as  it  is  better,  is  simply  the  light 
of  Calvary  on  human  life.  Any  better  life,  any 
finer  vision,  to  be  realized  in  any  sphere  or  time 
within  the  moral  order,  will  come,  and  can  come, 
only  by  the  yielding  of  the  hearts  of  men,  and 
of  the  constitutions  of  human  institutions,  to  the 
sovereignty  of  Christ. 

"  *  But  I  say  unto  you.'  His  word  has  never 
been  transcended.  The  true  apprehension  of 
Jesus  is  not  in  the  utterances  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  but  in  the  mysterious  scene  upon  the 
mountain  of  transfiguration.  'This  is  My  Son 
.  .  .  hear  ye  Him.1  It  is  the  eternal  voice 
from  heaven  to  the  race  to-day.  The  vision  and 
voice  must  both  be  seen  and  heard.  This  is  the 
order  of  Christian  evidence ;  he  who  spiritually 
apprehends  the  person  will  be  mysteriously,  sol- 
emnly commanded  by  the  utterance.  The  order 
of  experience  will  be  both  the  mount  of  vision 
and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  To  those  who 
see  the  vision,  the  voice  will  be  the  sovereign 
compulsion  of  human  thought  and  life.  This  is 
the  world's  deepest  need  to-day  and  the  sole 
solution  of  its  profoundest  problems.  To  serious, 
thoughtful  men  its  problems  are  serious  and 
sometimes  dreadful.  Without  the  help  of  God 
an  earnest-minded  man  would  not  be  able  to 
bear  the  weight  of  his  own  heavy  heart.  With- 
out the  light  of  Christ  the  shadows  of  human  life 
would  be  impenetrable. 


Foreword  13 

"  Jesus'  most  significant  method  we  have  yet 
to  see.  While  His  words  relate  to  bodies  of 
men  who  have  come  together  under  the  natural 
associations  of  human  interests,  His  words  are 
also  spoken  directly  to  the  individual.  He  real- 
izes that  both  the  social  and  the  industrial  order 
are  made  up  of  men  and  women.  So  He  went 
about  to  men  and  women.  He  said  most  of  His 
profoundest  words  to  but  twelve  men.  Yet  wit- 
ness the  realization  of  His  prophecy,  fulfilling 
itself  for  now  twenty  centuries,  that  they  should 
be  the  salt  and  leaven  of  the  earth.  The  supreme 
question  of  human  life  is  that  of  the  personal  re- 
lation of  the  individual  to  Christ.  Who,  in  these 
two  thousand  years,  have  done  the  most  to  bring 
men  to  His  feet?  The  framers  of  the  creeds? 
They  have  done  much,  and  yet  '  Their  little 
systems '  had  '  their  day  ;  they '  had  '  their  day 
and  ceased  to  be.'  The  theorists  of  social  re- 
form ?  They  have  done  much,  but  it  has  been 
fragmentary  and  transient.  In  the  industrial 
order,  the  organizations  of  labour?  No  doubt 
they  have  accomplished  a  great  deal  for  the 
uplifting  of  men.  But  more,  infinitely  more,  has 
come  from  the  perennial  power  of  simple  per- 
sonalities who  have  been  constantly  shedding 
Christ's  spirit  about  them.  Jesus  saw  these  same 
dreadful  problems.  They  were  worse  in  His  day. 
He  met  them  by  sending  out  twelve  disciples. 
He  is  meeting  them  to-day  in  the  same  way. 


14       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

The  sole  hope  of  the  world  is  to  make  men  dis- 
ciples of  Jesus.  He  is  waiting,  as  His  parents 
waited  in  the  inn,  to  find  room  in  the  social  and 
industrial  realms  of  life.  He  finds  room  as  men 
get  Him  in  their  hearts, 

"The  solution  of  all  human  problems  is  the 
answer  of  religion.  There  is  no  religion  known 
to  man  higher  than  our  Christian  faith.  The 
solemn  questions  of  society,  the  serious  condi- 
tions of  industry,  with  its  bitterness  and  hate, 
simply  await  the  second  coming  of  the  Son  of 
man  through  His  disciples.  The  world  to-day 
is  full  of  Bethesda  pools  and  of  men  waiting  for 
a  Christ  in  the  form  of  a  disciple  to  help  them 
in.  The  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth 
in  pain  together  until  men  shall  see  the  vision  of 
Mount  Hermon  and  hear  the  voice  of  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount 

"  '  O  Saul !  it  shall  be 

A  Face  like  My  face  that  receives  thee ;  a  man  like  to  Me 
Thou  shalt  love  and  be  loved  by  forever. 

A  Hand  like  this  hand 
Shall  throw  open  the  gates  of  new  life  to  thee, 

See  the  Christ  stand  ! ' 

"  There  is  no  other  name,  no  other  name, 
given  under  heaven  or  among  men,  whereby 
the  world  can  be  saved.  And  the  sovereignty 
of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  simple  reign  of  human 
love.  '  But  I  say  unto  you ; '  '  While  He  was 
yet  speaking  .  .  .  behold,  a  voice  out  of  the 


Foreword  15 

cloud'  said,  'This  is  My  beloved  Son     .     . 
hear  ye  Him/ 

"  The  Gospel  is  outgrown,  the  Christian  pulpit 
is  superfluous,  the  Church  of  Christ  goes  out  of 
existence,  when  the  truths  of  the  Gospel,  the 
vocabulary  of  the  pulpit,  and  the  constitution  of 
the  Church  do  not  contain  the  words  God>  sm, 
judgment  and  redemption.  We  need,  in  this 
heedless  generation,  to  be  first  of  all  Isaiahs, 
Jeremiahs,  Malachis,  Amoses,  Hoseas,  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  Jesus  Christ.  The  voice  of  the 
prophet  is  stilled  in  the  land.  We  need  to 
become  John  the  Baptists  forerunning  the  Re- 
deemer, with  the  stern  raiment  of  camel's  hair, 
with  strong  leathern  girdles  about  our  loins, 
preaching  in  a  wilderness  of  religious  indiffer- 
ence, and  saying,  '  Repent  ye,  for  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  at  hand/  that  men  may  come  and 
be  baptized  of  us,  confessing  their  sins.  We 
must  be  more  than  John  the  Baptists.  But  we 
cannot  be  more  than  John  the  Baptists  until  we 
have  been  John  the  Baptists.  Then,  on  the 
morrow,  looking  upon  the  transcendent  form  of 
the  Son  of  God,  revealing  so  ineffably  the 
Father's  character  and  will  and  love,  we  shall, 
with  the  joy  of  the  Gospel  making  our  voices  to 
tremble  in  the  transformation  of  the  message, 
point  suppliant  and  confessing  sinners  to  the 
Lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world." 


16       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

The  problems  of  the  social  order  are  pressing 
and  momentous.  We  should  be  solemnly  and 
joyously  conscious  that  we  hold  the  key  to  the 
situation  in  the  Gospel  of  our  Master.  There 
can  be  no  social  redemption  without  divine  re- 
generation. Behind  and  permeating  our  social 
science  we  need  a  great  theology  and  a  spacious 
Christology,  as  the  sovereign  requisites  of  our 
social  faith.  We  must  not  forget  that  we  are 
charged  with  spiritual  destinies  and  that  the 
commission  of  the  Church  is  to  save  men  ;  that 
we  must  never  deal  simply  with  material  con- 
ditions and  neglect  character,  or  relieve  misery 
while  we  ignore  sin.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
more  than  an  economic  state  of  equilibrium.  To 
resolve  man's  moral  and  spiritual  life  into  an 
economic  program  would  be  calamitous  and  sad. 
It  would  leave  men  in  the  very  treadmill  and 
grind  of  the  human  life  from  which  they  seek 
escape.  This,  however,  is  not  to  say  that  spir- 
itual and  material  things  are  unrelated.  Per- 
haps the  question  is,  shall  we  make  our  economic 
order  the  expression  of  our  moral  and  spiritual 
principles  and  shall  we  make  our  moral  and 
spiritual  life  the  ideal  and  the  end  of  that  eco- 
nomic order  ? 

We  can  never  have  Jesus'  Brotherhood  of  Man 
until  we  gain  the  sense  of  His  Fatherhood  of  God. 
We  can  have  no  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth 
until  our  economic  programs  are  fashioned 


Foreword  1 7 

in  the  light  of  spiritual  ideals  and  with  spiritual 
ends  in  view.  Above  us  shines  the  Star  of 
Bethlehem,  the  light  of  all  our  human  hopes, 
and  if  we  follow  it,  we  find  it  standing  over 
the  cradle  of  the  infant  Christ.  Thus,  the  search 
for  all  our  human  ideals  ends  in  Jesus.  The 
world  will  come  together  in  the  consummation 
of  sympathy,  tenderness,  brotherhood,  when  all 
men  are  brought  to  sit  together  at  the  feet  of 
Christ. 

The  Christian  Church  has  the  threefold  voca- 
tion of  conscience,  interpreter  and  guide  of  all 
social  movements.  She  should  determine  what 
their  motive  and  conscience  should  be,  inspire 
them  with  that  motive  and  impose  that  con- 
science upon  them.  She  should  interpret  their 
inner  and  ultimate  meaning.  Then,  with  a 
powerful  hand  and  mind  and  heart,  guide  them 
towards  their  spiritual  ends.  The  task  of  the 
Church  is  to  transform  a  chaotic  democracy  into 
an  ordered  kingdom  of  heaven. 

As  we  look  out  upon  the  social  order,  upon  the 
great  ocean  of  democracy,  with  its  waves  and 
billows,  but  also  with  its  splendid,  wide  horizon, 
the  Church  may  hear  the  call  of  the  Master  to 
those  who,  in  these  latter  days,  have  toiled  and 
taken  nothing,  "  Launch  out  into  the  deep  and 
let  down  your  nets."  In  the  burning,  fiery 
furnace,  heated  seven  times  hot,  if  we  witness 
with  clear  vision,  we  see  the  fourth  form,  and  it 


l8       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

is  like  unto  that  of  the  Son  of  Man.     Jesus  of 
Nazareth  is  passing  by. 

We  need  some  new  commentators.  A  multi- 
tude of  economic  terms  and  principles  await  their 
translation  into  moral  and  spiritual  speech.  Two 
things  the  Church  must  have.  One  is  spiritual 
authority ;  the  other  is  human  sympathy.  If  she 
gain  or  assume  a  spiritual  authority  without  hu- 
man sympathy,  she  becomes  what  the  Master 
would  have  called  "a  whited  sepulchre  filled 
with  dead  men's  bones."  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
her  human  sympathy  be  ever  so  deep,  warm  and 
passionate,  and  she  have  no  spiritual  authority, 
she  can  but  lift  a  limp  signal  of  distress,  with  a 
weak  and  pallid  hand. 

Her  disciples,  then,  must  go  to  the  Mountain 
of  Transfiguration  with  Jesus.  The  next  hour  of 
the  day  they  must  go  down  with  Him  upon  the 
plain  of  human  life  to  heal  men  of  their  diseases. 
But  they  cannot  do  His  work  upon  the  plain,  un- 
less they  have  been  upon  the  mountain  top  with 
the  Master,  so  that  they  may  come  down  radiant 
with  the  light  that  shines  from  His  face. 

"  The  world  sits  at  the  feet  of  Christ, 
Unknowing,  blind  and  unconsoled. 
It  yet  shall  touch  His  garment's  fold 
And  feel  the  heavenly  alchemist 
Transform  its  very  dust  to  gold." 

The  author  should  acknowledge  an  indebted- 
ness, covering  the  entire  period  of  his  ministry, 


Foreword  19 

to  James  Martineau,  Phillips  Brooks  and  other 
prophets  who  have  been  among  his  greatest 
teachers  and  inspirers  from  whom,  in  the  utter- 
ances of  this  book,  he  has  drawn  with  freedom. 

CHARLES  S.  MACFARLAND. 
New  York. 


The  Pattern  in  the  Mount 


I 

THE  IMPERIAL  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS 

THE  creeds  and  confessions  have  largely 
presented  to  us  the  eternal  Christ  in 
speculative  terms.  They  have  been  in- 
terested in  His  relation  to  the  universal  order, 
and  deal  with  such  philosophic  questions  as  the 
nature  of  His  birth,  His  preexistence  and  the  man- 
ner of  His  resurrection.  We  have  in  them  too 
little  of  the  human  grandeur  of  the  man,  Jesus  of 
Nazareth.  Indeed  these  in  some  measure  have 
been  permitted  to  obscure  the  splendid  manhood 
of  the  Master.  There  has  been  some  loss  in  this. 
We  have  often  failed  to  reach  men  by  these 
philosophic  terms,  psychological  interests  and 
mystical  rhapsodies.  In  our  emphasis  upon 
these  things  we  have  failed  to  picture  Jesus  ade- 
quately in  terms  of  moral  power. 

While  we  should  not  depreciate  this  wealth 
of  thought,  there  will  be  great  gain  if  we  can 
bring  the  moral  power  of  Jesus  to  win  the  moral 
mastery  of  men  and  to  arouse  great  moral  en- 
thusiasm. I  know  it  would  have  been  a  great 
help  to  me,  in  my  boyhood  and  young  man- 
hood, had  I  been  led  to  appreciate  the  manhood 
of  Jesus.  The  creeds  and  the  confessions  had  a 

23 


24       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

sense  of  vagueness  about  them,  which  resulted 
in  the  obscuration  of  the  Master  as  a  great  vital 
source  of  human  inspiration.  It  might  have  been 
better  if  we  had  reversed  the  order  and  had 
thought  of  Jesus,  first,  in  human  terms  and  then, 
in  the  order  of  thought,  in  terms  of  His  divine 
being.  Indeed  the  best  approach  to  the  divine 
is  through  the  human. 

The  moral  beauty  of  Jesus'  character  centres 
in  the  cross,  which  shone  before  Him  and  which 
beckoned  Him  on  from  the  very  beginning  of  His 
splendid  life.  Here,  again,  the  meaning  of  the 
cross  has  been  greatly  limited  by  human  philo- 
sophic speculation.  It  has  been  obscured  as  a 
living  inspiration  to  living  men,  with  their  duties 
and  temptations,  with  their  noble  aspirations  to 
be  inspired  and  their  moral  weaknesses  to  be 
shamed.  The  cross  does  not  mean  much  to 
men  until  it  becomes  the  symbol  of  a  great, 
unutterably  noble  life.  Looked  at  in  this  light 
every  man  who  wants  to  be  a  strong  and  noble 
man  might  well  have  a  crucifix  ever  before  his  eyes. 

The  moral  greatness  of  Jesus  is  simply  be- 
yond compare.  The  Gospels  glow  with  moral 
courage  from  beginning  to  end.  Seen  in  this 
light  men  will  come  to  love  Jesus,  as  they  be- 
hold Him  mingling  in  His  uncompromisingly 
democratic  spirit  with  publicans  and  sinners, 
while  the  Pharisees  shower  their  scorn  upon 
Him.  Their  manhood  will  be  stronger  as  they 


The  Imperial  Spirit  of  Jesus  25 

behold  Him  before  Pilate  and  Herod  in  His 
indifferent  calmness.  It  is  inspiring  to  look  at 
Jesus,  combining,  as  He  does,  His  great  intel- 
lectual power  with  an  attractive  modesty,  His 
tenderness  with  courage,  His  meekness  with 
boldness,  His  self-sacrifice  with  a  great  manly 
spirit,  His  enthusiasm  with  patience,  His  com- 
passion with  moral  indignation,  His  humility 
with  self-respect ;  "  the  elements  so  mixed  in 
Him  that  nature  might  stand  up  and  say  to 
all  the  world :  This  was  a  man."  The  com- 
pelling impression  of  these  Gospels  is  that  of  a 
sovereign  personality.  Before  His  august  pres- 
ence they  fell  back  in  the  garden  and  trembled 
at  Calvary. 

This  moral  power  of  Jesus  is  one  great  reve- 
lation of  the  cross.  It  was  a  voluntary  cross. 
"  And  they  were  in  the  way  going  up  to  Jeru- 
salem;  and  Jesus  went  before  them:  and  they 
were  amazed  ;  and  as  they  followed,  they  were 
afraid.  And  He  took  again  the  twelve,  and 
began  to  tell  them  what  things  should  happen 
unto  Him,  saying :  Behold,  we  go  up  to  Jeru- 
salem ;  and  the  Son  of  Man  shall  be  delivered 
unto  the  chief  priests,  and  unto  the  scribes ;  and 
they  shall  condemn  Him  to  death,  and  shall  de- 
liver Him  to  the  Gentiles  :  And  they  shall  mock 
Him,  and  shall  scourge  Him,  and  shall  spit  upon 
Him,  and  shall  kill  Him ;  and  the  third  day  He 
shall  rise  again." 


26       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

Amid  all  the  variations  and  vicissitudes  of 
Jesus'  life,  with  all  its  lights  and  shadows,  He 
walked  undeviatingly  in  one  straight  path  from 
the  Jordan  to  Calvary.  Expediency  found  with 
Him  no  place  with  her  beseeching  subtleties. 
The  consideration  of  consequence  exercised  no 
guiding  or  repressive  hand. 

We  have  a  beautiful  prophetic  gleam  in  His 
young  boyhood,  of  which,  I  doubt  not,  there 
were  many.  "  Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  about 
My  Father's  business?"  The  baptism  in  the 
Jordan  was  His  maturer  consecration.  In  the 
wilderness  we  see  His  ultimate  decision.  At 
Csesarea  Philippi  came  the  open  avowal.  At 
the  transfiguration  came  the  frank  prophecy  of 
His  inevitable  human  fate.  Now  He  is  on  His 
way  to  Jerusalem  and  He  knows  where  He  is 
going.  It  is  evident  that  He  saw  it  and  felt  it 
all  along.  "  For  this  cause  was  I  born."  "  To 
this  end  came  I  into  the  world."  And  again 
upon  another  occasion,  "  My  time  is  not  yet 
come." 

One  meaning  of  the  cross,  perhaps  the  mean- 
ing of  the  cross,  is  that  at  Calvary  we  witness 
the  fulfillment  of  the  most  heroic  life  the  world 
has  ever  seen.  This  moral  Christ  is  King  of 
kings  and  Lord  of  lords.  He  has  been  for  two 
thousand  years  standing  in  the  midst  of  the 
world,  the  enrichment  of  its  thought,  the  sov- 
ereign embodiment  of  its  ideals.  The  moral 


The  Imperial  Spirit  of  Jesus  27 

world  has  been  made  by  Him,  and  His  supreme 
example  is  the  alluring  and  uneffaceable  picture 
upon  the  walls  of  human  memory.  The  surest 
approach  to  the  Divine  Christ,  the  Son  of  God, 
is  by  the  following  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  Son 
of  Man. 

So  while  it  is  true  that  the  thought  of  Christ 
helps  me  as  I  think  of  Him  in  His  relation  to 
eternal  Being,  as  the  revelation  of  the  heart  of 
God,  it  is  also  true  that  He  helps  me  as  He 
reveals  my  prophetic  to  my  untrue  self,  as  He 
shames  me  in  His  effulgent  noble  light  and  in- 
spires me  by  His  nobility.  There  are  other 
values  to  Jesus,  but  of  supreme  value  is  the 
imitableness  and  the  reproducibleness  of  His 
character.  I  wish  that  with  the  brush  of  a  great 
artist  I  could  paint  a  new  picture  of  Him.  I 
would  paint  Him  as  a  young  man  with  His  face 
turned  towards  Jerusalem.  I  would  make  a 
series  of  pictures.  I  would  paint  Him  first  as 
a  frank,  open-faced  boy  in  the  temple ;  and  out 
in  a  distant  background  I  would  put  the  cross 
in  its  shadowy  outlines.  Then  I  would  paint 
Him  in  the  wilderness,  under  the  stress  of  the 
temptation  to  kneel  down  and  worship  evil  for 
the  sake  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  world.  I 
would  picture  the  face  of  the  young  man  looking 
away  again  towards  that  distant  cross,  now  a 
little  clearer.  I  would  picture  Him  on  the  dusty 
Galilean  road  with  the  disciples,  some  of  them 


28       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

turning  their  backs  upon  Him,  but  with  His 
face  resolutely  fixed  towards  the  heights  of 
Calvary.  I  would  go  on  and  paint  that  face 
again  as  He  stands  amid  the  scornful  Pharisees, 
the  face  averted  from  them,  because  He  still 
keeps  it  turned  towards  Jerusalem  ;  before  Pilate 
as  he  asks,  and  answers  the  question  as  he  asks 
it,  "Art  thou  a  King?"  I  should  like  to  show 
Him  to  men  in  the  quiet  hour  upon  the  moun- 
tainside, in  Gethsemane,  at  that  last  supper, 
with  His  eyes  still  looking  out  beyond  upon  that 
same  cross,  now  clearly  seen  between  the  two 
other  crosses. 

And  under  each  of  these  pictures  I  would  in- 
scribe the  words  of  Luke,  "  His  face  was  as 
though  He  would  go  up  to  Jerusalem."  I 
should  like  to  have  that  series  of  pictures  upon 
the  walls  of  every  college  room  and  upon  the 
mind  of  every  young  man  in  this  nation. 

The  theological  Christ  has  had  its  power,  the 
mystical  Saviour  has  had  His  influence,  but  it  is 
a  great  loss  if  this  magnificent  picture  of  the 
moral  Christ  is  lost  to  view.  If  men  could  see 
it,  it  would  appeal  to  them.  If  men  once  could 
witness  it  they  would  admire  it.  They  would 
all  say  with  the  great  soldier  of  old,  "Nazarene, 
Thou  hast  conquered."  If  they  could  see  that 
cross  in  this  splendid  light  they  would  also  read 
on  it  the  inscription  of  ConstantineV  vision, 
"By  this  sign,  conquer."  I  remember  how  at 


The  Imperial  Spirit  of  Jesus  29 

one  time  a  very  liberal-minded  hearer  came  to 
me  with  a  little  theological  objection,  because  I 
ended  my  prayers,  "  For  the  sake  of  Christ.''  I 
told  him  that  I  used  that  expression,  not  so  much 
as  an  appeal  to  the  Father  as  an  appeal  to  my- 
self. With  such  a  picture  as  I  have  tried  to 
suggest  might  we  not  all  be  moved  to  do  great 
things  "  for  the  sake  of  Christ "  ? 

Another  picture  in  the  Gospels,  wondrously 
attractive,  is  that  of  the  Master's  last  hours  with 
the  disciples,  as  He  gives  His  message  of  fare- 
well. 

"  Peace  I  leave  with  you  ;  My  peace  I  give 
unto  you ;  not  as  the  world  giveth,  give  I  unto 
you.  Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled,  neither  let 
it  be  afraid." 

"  In  the  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation :  but 
be  of  good  cheer,  I  have  overcome  the  world." 

"  Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  send  peace  on 
earth :  I  came  not  to  send  peace  but  a  sword." 
Jesus  is  reassuring  His  disciples.  He  says  to 
them :  Be  courageous,  be  bold,  overcome  the 
world.  By  the  world  He  means  the  temporal 
life.  Be  masters,  He  says,  over  that  life,  let 
your  spirits  overcome  it. 

What  a  sublime  picture  !  There  He  is,  await- 
ing the  end.  He  is  going  down  in  apparent 
defeat  to  human  eyes.  His  life  seems  naught. 
The  cross  awaits  Him,  a  cross  between  the  crosses 
of  two  thieves.  Barabbas  is  to  be  chosen  in- 


30       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

stead  of  Himself.  He  no  longer  has  any  fol- 
lowers, except  those  faithful  few,  and  even  they 
are  trembling,  fearful  and  ready  to  flee.  Yet  He 
utters  these  strangely  contradictory  words,  "  I 
am  the  Master  of  the  world/' 

We  have  here  another  revelation  of  the  char- 
acter of  Jesus,  of  His  triumphant,  majestic  per- 
son, in  which  He  stands  out  as  the  inspiration,  as 
the  example  for  human  life  and  of  a  noble  atti- 
tude towards  human  life. 

His  glorious  life  is  still  centering  in  the  cross 
towards  which  it  has  been  leading.  From  the 
beginning  He  has  seen  the  end.  Behind  Him  is 
a  long  trail  of  moral  strength.  From  Him  goes 
the  impression  of  a  sovereign  personality.  He  is 
again  the  supreme  example  of  noble  living,  for 
the  manhood  of  our  day,  with  its  alternating 
bravery  and  cowardice,  with  its  noble  resolve  and 
its  weak  compliance.  Jesus  becomes  first  the 
shamer  and  then  the  inspirer  of  human  living. 

Having  in  some  measure  thus  apprehended  the 
mind  of  the  Master,  and  gathered  something  of 
the  moral  grandeur  of  His  life,  we  may,  in  this 
scene,  seek  to  discover  the  hidden  secret  of  His 
outward  splendour.  Let  us  try  to  look  into  His 
soul  and  discover  the  meaning  of  this  majestic, 
brave,  strong,  impellingly  attractive  manhood. 
Look  again  at  the  situation  under  which  His 
words  were  uttered,  remember  that  He  is  facing 
a  cross,  listen  to  His  words  :  "  Peace  I  leave  unto 


The  Imperial  Spirit  of  Jesus  31 

you,"  "  Be  full  of  confidence,"  "  I  have  conquered 
the  world." 

Another  strange  thing  is  the  contradictoriness 
of  the  Master.  For  upon  another  occasion  did 
He  not  say,  "  Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  send 
peace  on  the  earth ;  I  came  not  to  send  peace,  but 
a  sword  "  ?  Thus  we  have  here  two  of  the  "  hard 
sayings  "  of  Jesus,  as  they  are  called  in  the  New 
Testament.  Sometimes  when  He  uttered  such 
sayings,  men  who  had  hitherto  followed  Him 
turned  their  backs  upon  Him  and  "  walked  no 
more  with  Him."  These  sayings  are  very  often 
in  the  form  of  an  apparent  contradiction.  He 
tells  men,  for  example,  that  they  save  their  life  by 
losing  it ;  that  they  live  by  dying ;  that  they  are 
served  by  serving ;  that  they  receive  by  giving. 

How  are  we  to  explain  the  paradox  of  these 
two  contradictory  utterances?  Shall  we  avail 
ourselves  of  the  liberty  of  criticism  and  say  that 
one  appears  in  the  synoptic  Gospels  and  is  his- 
torical, while  the  other  appears  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  and  is  unhistorical  ?  Shall  we  decide  that 
one  of  them  is  an  interpolation  ?  This  is  alto- 
gether too  easy  and  ready  a  method.  Let  us 
wait  and  see  if  we  may  not  bring  them  into 
harmony. 

First  of  all  look  at  the  second  utterance  and  see 
how  true  it  is.  He  sent  those  disciples  forth  into 
the  world.  Did  they  not  find  the  sword  ?  Their 
story  is  a  continuous  one  of  persecution,  impris- 


32       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

onment,  death.  If  there  was  one  thing  they  did 
not  find  it  was  peace.  Peter  and  John  began  at 
Jerusalem.  They  were  told  they  must  not  speak 
or  teach  in  the  name  of  Jesus.  They  went  out, 
prayed  for  courage  and  went  to  preaching  again. 
For  it  they  were  beaten  with  stripes.  They  re- 
ceived their  hundredfold  reward  "with  persecu- 
tions." 

One  of  the  tragic  pictures  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  that  of  another  of  their  companions, 
Stephen,  stoned  to  death  by  an  infuriated  mob. 
James,  the  brother  of  John,  met  death  by  Herod's 
sword.  Peter  finds  himself  within  prison  walls. 
One  of  their  persecutors  was  converted,  Saul  of 
Tarsus.  He  goes  to  Lystra  and  Derbe,  where  he 
is  stoned  and  drawn  out  of  the  city,  supposedly 
dead.  At  Athens  he  is  rudely  mocked  by  the 
wise  men  of  that  wise  city.  Conspiracies  in- 
numerable are  formed  against  him.  He  finally 
falls  before  them  and  dies  at  Rome.  Thus  he 
tells  in  summary  the  story  of  his  life ;  in  labours 
many,  in  stripes  above  measure,  in  prisons  fre- 
quent, in  deaths  oft.  Five  public  beatings  with 
forty  stripes  save  one  each  time.  Thrice  beaten 
with  rods,  once  stoned,  thrice  suffered  shipwreck, 
a  night  and  a  day  in  the  deep,  in  perils  by  the 
heathen,  in  perils  in  the  city,  in  perils  in  the  wil- 
derness, in  perils  in  the  sea,  in  perils  among  false 
brethren,  in  weariness  and  painfulness,  in  watch- 
ings  often,  in  hunger  and  thirst,  in  fastings  often, 


The  Imperial  Spirit  of  Jesus  33 

in  cold  and  nakedness,  and  withal  the  care  and 
burden,  not  of  one,  but  of  many,  unmanageable 
churches.  What  mockery  are  Jesus*  words  to 
him  !  "  Peace  I  leave  with  you/1  How  fortunate 
if  the  Fourth  Gospel  were  written  very  late  and 
is  unreliable  !  Does  it  riot  make  our  Lord  guilty 
of  a  false  prophecy  ? 

The  story  goes  on  through  succeeding  ages. 
The  successors  of  these  disciples  live  and  die  in 
Roman  catacombs  and  caves.  They  are  hunted, 
hungered,  despised,  persecuted,  suffering  unto 
death.  How  it  must  have  mocked  them  :  "  Peace 
I  leave  with  you."  Jesus*  bequest  was  broken, 
or  at  least  this  codicil  revoked. 

But  even  all  this  is  less  perplexing  than  the  ut- 
terance coming  from  the  lips  of  the  man  who 
spoke  it.  Was  it  a  mistaken  prophecy  of  Jesus  ? 
Because  His  own  life  was  so  calm  and  peaceful 
did  He  suppose  that  His  disciples'  would  be  also  ? 
Look  for  a  moment  at  the  life  of  the  man  from 
whose  lips  these  words  come.  Follow  Him  in 
His  weariness,  in  His  rejection,  in  His  disputes 
with  carping  critics,  with  His  misunderstanding 
and  quarrelling  disciples.  Not  a  place  to  lay  His 
head.  Go  with  Him  on  the  mountainside  at 
night.  Witness  Him  in  the  garden  where  He 
sweat  as  it  were  great  drops  of  blood.  Behold 
Him  on  Calvary  between  thieves.  Watch  Him 
crowned  with  thorns,  buffeted,  spat  upon,  mocked 
in  disdain.  What  a  contrast  and  contradiction 


34       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

are  His  words :  "  Peace  I  leave  with  you  ;  My 
peace  I  give  unto  you." 

But  if  we  go  back  and  look  at  those  disciples 
again  we  behold  another  aspect  of  their  life. 
Peter  is  there,  it  is  true,  in  prison.  But  we  read 
about  the  presence  of  an  angel  of  the  Lord  and 
of  a  light  in  the  midst  of  the  darkness.  Think 
of  some  of  those  little  gatherings  in  the  upper 
rooms  with  the  breaking  of  bread  and  prayers. 
Look  at  Paul  with  his  visions  all  full  of  beauty. 
Read  his  epistles,  vibrant  with  joy  and  hope  and 
faith.  On  the  sinking  ship  he  is  the  one  buoyant 
spirit  of  them  all.  He  goes  into  the  midnight 
prison  again  where  he  sits  thrust  into  the  inner 
ward  with  his  feet  fast  in  the  stocks,  and  you 
hear  him,  with  Silas,  singing  hymns. 

Go  back  again  and  look  at  the  life  of  Jesus. 
Look  beyond  the  outward  vicissitudes.  Seek  to 
penetrate  to  the  inner  consciousness  of  the  suf- 
fering man.  There  is  no  thought  of  pessimism 
in  His  Gospel.  He  is  ever  lighted  up  by  faith 
and  hope  and  joy.  Behold  Him  before  Pilate ! 
His  countenance  is  untroubled.  Pilate  is  the  dis- 
turbed and  restless  one ;  the  troublesome  dreams 
were  those  of  the  chamber  of  his  household. 

Our  paradox  is  partly  solved.  Both  proph- 
ecies are  true.  He  did  send  a  sword  on  earth.  He 
did  at  the  same  time  leave  His  bequest  of  peace. 

But  our  deeper  question  is  not  answered.  Is 
this  true  of  human  life  in  general  ?  Whence  has 


The  Imperial  Spirit  of  Jesus  35 

come  the  finest  literature,  the  literature  of  peace, 
joy,  light,  hope,  inspiration,  triumph?  Has  it 
come  from  men  whose  lives  were  free  from  suf- 
fering, pain  and  disappointment?  Sometimes, 
perhaps,  but  not  very  often.  It  has  not  come 
from  those  who  lived  in  kings'  palaces  and  wore 
soft  raiment.  Most  of  it  has  come  out  of  the 
depths  of  dungeons,  from  blind  poets,  from 
disease-racked  bodies. 

It  is  the  voice  of  Boethius  from  his  prison  cell, 
of  Defoe  in  the  pillory,  of  Silvio  Pellico  under 
the  fiery  leads  of  Venice  or  in  the  bitter  cold  of 
his  Austrian  dungeon.  It  has  come  from  John 
Bunyan  in  Bedford  jail.  Hence  has  the  litera- 
ture of  hope  issued  forth  ;  our  hymns  of  joy  ;  our 
stories  of  faith. 

Jesus'  prophecy  is  true.  The  reason  it  did  not 
seem  to  be  true  was  because  we  did  not  read 
it  aright.  Read  it  again  :  "  Peace  I  leave  with 
you."  "  My  peace  I  give  unto  you."  " My  peace." 
"Not  as  the  world"  It  means  that  this  outward 
life  is  not  our  reallest  life.  It  means  that  our 
outward  and  inward  life  are  in  large  measure 
independent  of  each  other.  It  means  that  true 
peace  does  not  come  from  external  situations 
but  from  something  that  is  within  us ;  our  in- 
ward sense  of  our  Tightness  with  God,  our  con- 
sciousness of  true  purpose  and  true  heart.  It 
means  the  estimate  of  things  by  a  view  from 
above.  It  means  that  heaven  is  not  a  place  to 


36       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

which  we  go,  but  a  condition  to  attain.  It  means 
that  a  man,  within  himself,  may  be  like  one 
enfolded  in  the  comfort  of  his  home  while  the 
storm  rages  outside.  The  ultimate  victory  of 
human  life  is  this  triumph  of  the  inward  spirit 
over  the  outward  life. 

We  may  make  our  appeal  to  the  common  life 
we  know.  Those  among  us  who  are  the  calmest, 
the  strongest,  the  most  peaceful,  are  not  those 
whose  lives  have  been  filled  with  frittering  joys, 
as  we  shall  witness  in  another  chapter  of  this 
book.  They  are  those  who  have  known  suffer- 
ing, pain  and  disappointment. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  and  pathetic  of  all 
the  biographies  I  have  ever  read  is  the  generally 
unknown  one  of  Anne  Steele.  Her  life  was  that 
of  a  constant  invalid,  with  perpetual  suffering 
and  abiding  sorrow.  The  issue  of  that  experi- 
ence was  in  such  a  hymn  as  this : 

"Father,  whate'er  of  earthly  bliss 

Thy  sovereign  hand  denies; 
Accepted  at  Thy  throne  of  grace, 
Let  this  petition  rise ; 

"  Give  me  a  calm,  a  thankful  heart, 

From  every  murmur  free ; 
The  blessing  of  Thy  grace  impart, 
And  let  me  live  to  Thee. 

"Let  the  sweet  hope  that  Thou  art  mine, 

My  path  of  life  attend  ; 
Thy  presence  through  my  journey  shine, 
And  crown  my  journey's  end." 


The  Imperial  Spirit  of  Jesus  37 

"  Peace  I  leave  with  you ;  My  peace  I  give 
unto  you.  Not  as  the  world  giveth  give  I  unto 
you" 

"Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  send  peace  on 
earth  :  I  come  not  to  send  peace,  but  a  sword." 

So  Jesus  means  here  that  every  man  has  two 
lives  ;  the  outward  and  the  inward  life.  One  of 
them  controls  the  other.  Either  man's  spirit  con- 
quers his  circumstances,  or  his  circumstances 
subdue  a  yielding  spirit.  That  spirit  either  hum- 
bles and  degrades  itself  and  the  man  is  a  slave, 
or  that  spirit  is  unconquerable  and  the  man  is  a 
monarch. 

Just  look  back  again  a  little  and  watch  Jesus 
in  those  closing  days.  He  becomes  stronger  and 
stronger  as  He  approaches  nearer  the  cross. 
Thus  the  secret  of  the  moral  grandeur  of  His 
life  is  the  imperial  power  of  His  unconquerable 
spirit. 

I  am  trying,  as  I  have  said,  to  give  to  men  a 
vital  meaning  for  the  cross.  Look  at  the  Master 
fresh  from  Gethsemane,  facing  that  cross,  with  not 
one  brave  soul  to  stand  by  Him  to  the  end.  Hear 
again  that  calm,  majestic  utterance,  "  I  have 
conquered  the  world."  Imagine  yourself  there 
with  the  disciples,  facing  their  life,  and  hear  Him 
as  He  says  to  you,  "You  may  suffer  and  yet 
dwell  upon  sublime  heights."  "The  storm  of 
ruin  may  come  and  yet  there  need  never  be 
any  truce  of  the  spirit."  It  was  just  what  He  had 


38       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

been  saying  all  along  to  them,  "  I  will  give  you 
rest."  He  looked  out  on  the  city  of  His  day ; 
He  saw  men  as  we  see  them  to-day,  racing  each 
other  for  wealth,  looking  upon  each  other  with 
mutual  suspicion.  He  was  saying  to  them.  "  Do 
not  be  like  the  frail  craft,  like  the  little  steam 
yacht ;  be  like  the  great  ocean  steamer  with  her 
iron  hull,  as  she  moves  on  her  way  with  her  pon- 
derous throbs ;  do  not  let  yourself  be  tossed  about 
upon  the  ocean,  but  ride  through  her  billows." 

He  was  bidding  men,  as  He  bids  men  to-day, 
to  seek  and  possess  the  great  ultimate  realities  of 
life.  He  was  saying,  "  Forget  to  watch  your  little 
engines  and  look  out  upon  the  ocean  and  up  into 
the  sky," 

"And  hear  at  times  the  sentinel 
Who  moves  about  from  place  to  place ; 
And  whispers  to  the  worlds  of  space, 
In  the  deep  night,  that  all  is  well. 

"And  all  is  well,  though  faith  and  form 
Be  sundered  in  the  night  of  fear ; 
Well  roars  the  storm  to  those  that  hear 
A  deeper  voice  across  the  storm/' 

Do  not  guard  your  business,  your  paltry 
pleasures  and  little  interests  while  you  forget  to 
think  about  the  deep  things  of  life.  Try  to  catch 
His  spirit  as  did  the  great  Apostle  Paul,  who 
learned  how  to  abound  and  also  how  to  be 
abased,  to  rejoice  in  adversity  and  to  let  all  the 


The  Imperial  Spirit  of  Jesus  39 

experiences  of  life  give  their  lessons  and  their 
strength.  Do  not  long  for  some  soft,  pine-laden, 
balmy  southern  air,  but  be  made  stronger  by  the 
bleak  winds  of  the  rock-bound  New  England 
coast.  Get  hold  of  something  that  is  beyond  the 
reach  of  men,  some  joy  which  no  man  taketh 
from  you.  Be  like  the  rock  unmoved  by  the 
surging  of  the  waters.  When  stricken  down, 
rise  again  mightier  than  before.  Such  is  the 
voice  of  these  great  Gospels.  You  remember 
that  picture  of  the  Master  in  the  midst  of  the 
troubled  sea,  and  that  when  He  spake,  "  There 
was  a  great  calm."  So  the  peace  of  Jesus  was 
not  the  peace  of  surrender,  but  the  peace  of  vic- 
tory. 

We  see  in  the  world  differing  kinds  of  men. 
Some  take  things  easily,  and  they  say,  "  All  is 
right,  do  not  disturb  things,  let  them  alone." 
The  second  see  the  wrong  of  the  world,  are 
moved  with  indignation  and  waste  their  strength 
storming  over  the  ills  of  life.  The  third  see  all 
of  these  wrongs,  but  face  them  with  the  inward 
assurance  of  victory  as  they  deal  their  mighty 
strokes  with  calm,  steady,  quiet  hand. 

There  are  then  these  different  methods  of  fa- 
cing and  viewing  life.  The  method  of  placid 
acquiescence  is  that  of  a  false  peace.  The  method 
of  a  profound,  divine  trust  is  that  of  true  peace. 
Thus  this  peace  of  Jesus  does  not  come  by  having 
our  trials  taken  away,  but  by  the  pouring  in  upon 


4<3       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

us  of  a  great  strength.  Sometimes  we  need  to 
have  the  helps  of  this  earth  taken  away  from 
us,  in  order  that  we  may  be  led  to  God.  Jesus 
felt  these  earthly  supports  withdrawn  from  Him. 
His  followers  were  failing  Him.  He  was  alone, 
and  so  while  the  failing  disciples  were  asleep,  He 
was  with  His  Father  in  the  garden  of  Gethsem- 
ane,  gaining  His  strength. 

"  My  peace  I  give  unto  you."  "  Not  as  the 
world  giveth."  Not  the  peace  of  ease,  but  of 
struggle  ;  not  of  self-content,  but  of  self-sacrifice  ; 
not  of  yielding  to  evil,  but  of  conflict  with  it ;  not 
of  accommodation  to  the  world,  but  by  the  sub- 
jugation of  it.  And  so  He  adds,  "  I  have  over- 
come the  world."  It  is  a  strange  parodox,  this 
peace  of  conflict ;  it  is  the  peace  of  an  imperial 
spirit,  which  rises  by  its  own  victory  over  human 
circumstances. 

The  peace  of  Jesus  Christ  does  not  come  only 
through  some  mystical  contemplation,  or  through 
some  vague  experience.  It  comes  more  by  our 
.sharing  of  the  spirit  of  the  Master,  by  the  earnest 
following  of  duty,  the  noble  facing  of  responsi- 
bility, the  bold  confronting  of  difficulties,  the 
patient  bearing  of  calumny,  the  quiet  endurance 
of  persecution,  the  brave  carrying  of  sorrow  and 
the  prayerful  sanctifying  of  our  joys.  Gethsem- 
ane  and  Calvary  are  the  price  of  this  spirit. 
Rest  can  only  follow  labour.  The  overcoming  of 
outward  things  is  the  condition  of  inward  peace. 


The  Imperial  Spirit  of  Jesus  41 

Religion  is  not  simply  something  for  women, 
or  for  men  when  they  are  sick  or  dying.  In 
those  closing  days  of  Jesus  they  left  this 
noble  man  to  be  admired  and  worshipped 
by  a  few  faithful  women.  So  men  to-day 
have  done ;  but  now  I  ask ;  do  it  humbly, 
do  it  modestly,  do  it  knowing  that  you  are  not 
worthy  to  unloose  the  latchet  of  His  shoes,  but 
be  His  disciples,  admire  His  character,  do 
things  "  for  His  sake,"  give  Him  a  great,  manly 
affection. 

You  have  been  hearing  it  for  years,  "  Come  to 
Christ,  give  your  hearts  to  Christ."  Look  again 
at  this  scene.  Hear  His  "  My  peace  I  leave 
with  you."  "  Be  brave  men,  overcome  the  world 
as  I  have  overcome  it."  Look  at  His  cross,  and 
do  not  creep  away  and  leave  Him  to  Mary  and 
the  other  women. 

"  And  I  saw  heaven  opened — and  He  was 
called  Faithful  and  True,  His  eyes  were  as  a 
flame  of  fire,  and  on  His  head  were  many  crowns. 
And  He  hath  on  His  vesture  and  on  His  thigh 
a  name  written, — King  of  kings  and  Lord  of 
lords." 

"And  I  saw  thrones  and  I  saw  them  which 
were  brought  to  suffering  for  the  witness  of  Jesus 
and  which  had  not  worshipped  the  beast,  neither 
his  image,  nor  received  his  mark  on  their  fore- 
heads, nor  in  their  hands,  and  they  lived  and 
reigned  with  Christ." 


42       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

"Thou  seemest  human  and  divine; 
The  highest,  holiest  manhood  Thou. 
Our  wills  are  ours,  we  know  not  how ; 
Our  wills  are  ours,  to  make  them  Thine." 

You  remember  how  Peter,  in  the  sad  moment 
of  his  cowardly  fear,  looked  and  caught  sight  of 
the  face  of  Christ ;  then  went  out  and  wept  bit- 
terly. So  we  should  do,  again  and  again ;  for 
again  and  again  we  play  Peter's  part.  Like  the 
other  disciple,  Mark,  we  flee  away,  leaving  our 
cloak  in  the  hands  of  His  enemies.  He  sees  us, 
like  the  eleven  at  the  crucial  moment,  as  we  fail 
Him.  Again  and  again,  when  we  do  Him  honour, 
we  do  it,  as  did  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  in  secret. 

"  One  look  of  that  pale  suffering  face 
Will  make  us  feel  the  deep  disgrace 
Of  weakness." 


Social  Redemption 


II 

TRUE  AND  FALSE  CULTURE 

"A  •  "\HE  Spirit  of  the  Lord  God  is  upon 
me ;  because  the  Lord  hath  anointed 
me  to  preach  good  tidings  unto  the 
meek ;  He  hath  sent  me  to  bind  up  the  broken- 
hearted, to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives,  and 
the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are 
bound." 

We  are  accustomed  to  associate  and  blend 
this  lofty  prophetic  utterance  with  the  thought 
of  its  fulfillment  in  the  Saviour  of  mankind.  Let 
us,  however,  consider  it  in  the  light  of  its  orig- 
inal meaning  and  application.  It  refers  to  "  the 
Servant  of  Jehovah."  This  term,  as  used  in  the 
book  of  Isaiah,  refers  to  a  little  group  in  Israel, 
its  "saving  remnant."  It  means  those  men  of 
the  nation  who,  in  the  midst  of  all  its  vicissitudes, 
remained  true  to  its  highest  mission.  They  were 
the  thoughtful  few  of  the  nation  who  steadfastly 
kept  their  hearts  and  minds  upon  abiding  truths, 
and  who,  in  the  midst  of  the  shadows,  kept  their 
eyes  fixed  upon  the  guiding  star  of  Israel's  ideals. 
They  represented  the  culture  of  Israel. 

In  other  chapters  of  Isaiah  they  are  so  referred 
to,  as  in  the  fiftieth  chapter,  where  the  Servant 

45 


46       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

of  Jehovah  represents  himself  as  uttering  his 
prophetic  message,  "With  the  tongue  of  the 
learned/1 

In  its  prophetic  blending  of  the  human  and 
the  divine,  the  Bible  throughout  is  mediatorial 
in  its  estimate  of  humanity.  It  is  ever  giving  to 
us  a  wonderful  succession  of  pictures  of  God,  of 
the  human  race,  and  of  the  great  leaders  of  the 
race  standing  between  God  and  mankind,  re- 
vealing the  Infinite  to  the  finite,  the  divine  to 
the  human,  and  ever  bringing  them  closer  to- 
gether. The  philosophy  of  Scripture  solves  the 
question  of  individual  and  social  life.  It  is  ever 
showing  us  that  the  individual  fulfills  his  person- 
ality as  he  gives  himself  to  the  social  order  of 
humanity. 

Two  books  recently  appeared  simultaneously. 
The  one  is  called  "Beyond  Good  and  Evil,"  giv- 
ing us  the  philosophy  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche. 
The  other  is  entitled  "The  Christian  Ministry 
and  the  Social  Order." 

These  two  books  illustrate  a  contrast.  The 
philosophy  of  Nietzsche  is  that  of  an  excessive 
individualism.  It  is  a  bald  confession  of  the 
ruthless  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  He 
tells  us  that  it  is  all  nonsense  to  talk  of  giving 
ourselves  for  the  sake  of  others.  He  insists  that 
we  must  yield  to  the  inevitable  law  of  selection. 
While,  doubtless,  his  philosophy  is  misunder- 
stood and  is  not  ?o  bad  as  the  reviewers  have 


True  and  False'  Culture  47 

sometimes  made  it  appear,  nevertheless,  in  its 
emphasis,  it  ultimately  means,  "Every  man  for 
himself."  The  world  is  only  made  better  by  the 
process  of  selection. 

The  other  book  gives  a  different  emphasis.  It 
does  not  deny  the  necessity  for  self-culture,  but 
it  goes  on  to  insist  on  the  use  of  self-culture  by 
the  means  of  self-giving.  It  is  a  plea  to  young 
men  who  are  going  out  into  the  ministry,  not  to 
withdraw  themselves  from  the  life  of  the  world, 
but  to  give  themselves,  heart  and  soul,  to  the 
realization  of  democracy,  to  the  uplifting  of  the 
social  order  into  a  great  brotherhood  of  man- 
kind in  which  the  strong  will  remember  the 
weak.  Broadly  speaking,  the  one  book  is  really 
a  plea  for  the  culture  of  the  few  at  the  expense 
of  the  many  ;  the  other  is  an  exhortation  for  the 
use  of  the  culture  of  the  few  for  the  sake  of  the 
many. 

Our  modern  culture  is  under  the  fire  of  criti- 
cism. There  is  wide-spread  doubt  as  to  its  value. 
When  the  people  get  together  to  choose  those 
who  shall  guide  their  destinies,  they  are  more 
and  more  electing  from  their  own  and  are  less 
inclined  to  choose  the  cultured  men  of  their  city 
for  its  elective  offices.  Our  great  democratic 
leaders  are  not,  in  the  main,  men  of  culture.  It 
must  be  admitted  that  this  distrust  is  not  without 
its  grounds.  The  natural  inclination  of  men 
would  be  to  select,  as  their  leaders,  those  who 


48       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

are  above  them  in  wisdom  and  consecration. 
They  do  not  intentionally  mean  to  elect  false 
leaders.  The  trouble  is,  in  part,  that  men  of 
culture  have  been  tried  by  them  and  found  want- 
ing. They  have  not  been  sufficiently  in  touch, 
in  sympathy,  with  the  feelings,  the  wants,  the 
needs,  the  hearts,  the  minds  of  those  whose 
destinies  have  been  placed  in  their  hands. 

There  is  a  true  and  a  false  culture.  The  great 
prophets  were  the  exponents  of  a  true  culture. 
Later  on,  the  Scribes  and  the  Pharisees,  who 
took  their  places,  were  the  representatives  of  a 
false  culture. 

When  Jesus  came  to  perform  His  great  mission 
He  found  the  culture  of  His  day  largely  unusable. 
He  had  to  build  His  great  kingdom  of  heaven 
with  a  few  publicans  and  fishermen.  The  great- 
est obstacle  that  Jesus  encountered  was  the 
counterfeit  culture  of  His  time,  which  even 
pointed  to  Him  with  scorn  and  said,  "  This  man 
eateth  with  publicans  and  sinners  ; "  which  said 
again,  "  This  man  cannot  be  a  prophet,  other- 
wise He  would  have  known  that  this  was  a  sinful 
woman  and  He  would  not  have  let  her  touch 
Him."  The  fallacious  philosophy  which  Jesus 
encountered  was  much  the  same  as  that  of 
Friedrich  Nietzsche. 

History  records  the  same  thing  over  and  over 
again.  The  stone  which  the  builders  rejected 
has  become  the  head  of  the  corner.  Out  of  the 


True  and  False  Culture  49 

mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings  God  has  ordained 
strength.  Take  for  example  the  college  or  the 
university  in  the  midst  of  a  great  city.  How 
little  influence  it  often  has  upon  the  life  of  that 
city.  How  frequently  it  is  cloistered.  It  keeps 
its  treasures  to  itself.  How  proportionately  few 
of  our  college  graduates  are  really  effective  as 
great  moral  leaders.  Take  our  college  clubs. 
As  I  go  through  Clubdom  in  New  York  City, 
about  44th  Street,  I  often  think  of  it.  How  little 
those  great  bodies  of  men  are  doing  for  the  life 
of  that  great  city.  They  are  given  over,  at  best, 
to  their  own  social  culture.  They  might  well 
get  together  for  this,  but  at  the  same  time  for 
something  larger.  They  might  become  great 
organizations  of  strength  in  the  moral  life  of  the 
city.  It  is  only  occasionally,  among  a  few  stu- 
dents of  economics,  that  we  find  our  college  pro- 
fessors men  of  broad  sympathies,  wide  contact, 
and  powerful  influence  in  civic  or  in  social  life. 

Not  long  ago  I  received  a  most  suggestive 
letter  from  a  wage  earner.  It  was  filled  with 
great  prophecies.  It  burned  with  sympathy.  It 
was  a  suggestion  of  the  highest  form  of  culture. 
I  passed  it  over  to  a  university  professor  to  read. 
I  suppose  he  could  have  read  it  had  it  been  in 
Hebrew  or  had  it  related  to  ancient  Babylonia  or 
Chaldea,  but  it  was  an  unknown  tongue  to  him. 
He  was  totally  incapable  of  comprehending  its 
meaning. 


50       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

In  relation  to  our  theological  education,  for 
men  going  into  the  ministry,  I  have  been  asking 
myself  a  few  questions  lately.  Might  not  these 
men  better  study  less  Hebrew  and  substitute  a 
little  Yiddish?  Might  they  not  learn  some  Ital- 
ian, German,  Russian,  Magyar,  in  order  to  come 
into  closer  touch  with  the  peoples  from  all  over 
the  world  who  surround  their  little  parishes,  even 
if  they  did  it  at  the  expense  of  some  ancient 
Greek  and  Latin  ?  Perhaps  they  might  divide 
their  Greek  and  learn  some  ancient  and  some 
modern.  For  it  is  true  that  much  of  our  minis- 
try is  dying,  or  is  dead,  of  culture. 

Only  a  little  while  ago,  I  heard  a  strange  plea 
from  a  minister  whose  parish  is  situated  in  a 
great  democratic  manufacturing  community. 
His  advice  was  that  we  must  refrain  from  trying 
to  adjust  the  social  order.  He  said  we  must 
leave  things  to  God,  God  would  take  care  of  it 
all  and  we  need  not  interfere  with  His  designs. 
In  speaking  with  another  minister,  of  great 
movements  for  civic  reform,  for  the  purification 
of  the  life  of  our  municipalities,  he  dismissed  the 
whole  matter  by  saying,  "  Let  those  enter  into 
it  who  want  to.  I  have  no  taste  for  it." 

Another,  in  my  hearing,  recently  congratu- 
lated himself  that,  after  a  pastorate  in  a  busy 
cosmopolitan  city  full  of  all  kinds  of  humanity, 
he  had  succeeded  in  obtaining  another  pastorate 
in  a  guiet,  remote,  suburban  community  and  he 


True  and  False  Culture  51 

ended  by  saying,  "  I  am  glad  to  get  away  from 
it  all."  These  are  examples  of  false  culture. 

In  a  recent  address  at  a  student  conference,  of 
men  preparing  for  the  ministry,  a  well-known 
layman  advised  ministers  to  keep  to  what  he 
called  "  the  Gospel  and  to  let  all  social  and  eco- 
nomic questions  alone."  This  is  the  culture  of 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees. 

I  am  always  more  than  doubtful  about  the 
notices  which  we  sometimes  read  in  church 
calendars,  requesting  the  people  to  let  the  min- 
ister alone  so  many  hours  a  day.  He  must  not 
be  disturbed.  Should  he  not  find  the  way  of 
conserving  his  own  inner  life  while  he  is  in  the 
very  midst  of  his  outward  activities  ?  He  must 
not  become  a  victim  of  too  much  sobriety  and 
order.  He  must  simply  be  willing  to  give  him- 
self to  anybody  and  everything  at  any  time  of 
day  or  night. 

It  is  also  true  that  our  churches  have  come  to 
be  considered  as  the  homes  of  culture.  Thus 
construed,  or  misconstrued,  that  is  why  the 
people  have  become  distrustful  of  them.  There 
are  many  churches  that  have  died  of  too  much 
culture  of  a  spurious  kind. 

While  all  this  is  true,  it  is  not  really  a  criticism 
of  culture.  It  is  a  criticism  of  a  wrong  concep- 
tion of  culture.  This  false  culture  is  the  kind 
which  leads  the  woman,  in  her  ambitions  for  so- 
cial or  literary  distinction,  to  give  up  motherhood 


52       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

and  the  home.  It  is  the  kind  which  leads  the 
professional  man  to  worship  at  the  altar  of  suc- 
cess and  to  forget  the  altar  of  his  fireside.  To 
gather  up  the  whole  thought,  any  culture  is 
counterfeit  that  separates  us  from  our  fellow  men. 

The  saddest  thing  in  the  world  is  this  misuse 
of  things  good  in  themselves.  Thomas  Went- 
worth  Higginson  once  wrote  an  article  in  the 
Atlantic  Monthly  entitled,  "The  Cowardice  of 
Culture."  He  gave  a  long  list  of  famous  names, 
of  men  who  had  proven  false  prophets.  They 
all  had  the  same  fault.  They  did  not  have  confi- 
dence in  mankind. 

The  result  is  that  such  cultured  lives  are  wasted 
because  their  contact  with  the  world  is  lost  as 
they  lose  the  sense  of  sympathy.  They  are  like 
a  great  dynamo  without  any  connection  with  the 
belts  and  wheels.  It  is  sad  that  in  their  prepara- 
tion for  the  task  of  life  they  lose  sight  of  the  task 
itself.  Such  men  and  women  spend  their  lives 
getting  their  tools  in  order  and  never  do  any- 
thing with  them  when  they  are  sharpened. 
Among  the  greatest  wastes  of  life  is  this  waste 
of  culture.  Take  any  college  class  and  witness 
the  few  who  really  use  what  they  have  gained 
for  the  service  of  the  world. 

Phillips  Brooks  was  a  splendid  example  of  true 
culture.  How  beautifully  he  blended  power  with 
sympathy,  profoundness  with  simplicity.  One  of 
his  finest  sermons  is  called  "  Visions  and  Tasks." 


True  and  False  Culture  53 

He  pictures  Peter  on  the  housetop,  witnessing 
his  vision  of  truth,  with  the  great  human  life  be- 
low, knocking  at  the  door  of  the  house,  that  the 
apostle  should  come  down  and  shed  the  light  of 
his  vision  upon  the  waiting  race.  He  then  gives 
us  the  picture  of  Peter  plodding  over  the  dusty 
hills  as  he  follows  his  vision  with  service.  He 
shows  us  how  we  must  bring  together  the  truth 
of  God  and  the  facts  of  life.  He  talks,  with  the 
utterance  of  a  prophet,  on  the  double  power  of 
knowing  and  of  loving,  of  receiving  and  giving. 

And  yet  the  culture  of  the  world  is  the  life  of 
the  world.  This  Servant  of  Jehovah  was  the 
saviour  of  the  nation.  While  it  is  sad  to  see 
men  who  behold  visions  but  do  no  work,  it  is  also 
sad  to  see  men  trying  to  work  without  inspira- 
tion. So  we  may  say  that  a  false  culture  is  that 
which  separates  us  from  the  world,  from  men, 
from  life,  while  true  culture  is  the  culture  of  serv- 
ice. 

The  world  is  full  of  men  to-day  who  are  able 
to  think  profoundly.  It  also  has  many  men  who 
are  able  to  feel  deeply.  Its  sovereign  need  is 
men  who  can  both  profoundly  think  with  the 
mind  and  deeply  feel  with  the  heart. 

There  are  three  kinds  of  men  and  women. 
The  first  are  those  who  both  neglect  and  despise 
all  culture.  The  second  are  those  who  make 
culture  an  end  in  itself.  Each  of  these  is  blind 
in  one  eye.  Then  there  are  the  third  who  reveal 


54       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

the  splendid  capacity  of  blending  culture  with 
service. 

We  are  going  to  have  a  new  university  in  the 
future.  It  is  not  to  be  represented  so  much  by 
the  monastery  as  by  the  social  settlement.  The 
so-called  classics  and  classical  education  will  be 
greatly  widened  in  their  scope.  This  new  uni- 
versity will  have  as  its  aim  the  preparing  of  men 
for  service  through  culture,  not  simply  the  giv- 
ing to  them  of  culture  itself.  It  will  send  out 
men  for  civic  leadership,  political  service,  social 
betterment. 

There  are  signs  of  the  coming  day.  One  of 
the  ancient  universities  of  England,  with  all  its 
classic  conservatism,  has  recently  given  its  hon- 
ourary  degree  to  Commander  Booth  of  the  Sal- 
vation Army.  Here  was  an  instance  of  the  rec- 
ognition of  true  culture.  I  am  glad  to  see  my 
friend,  Mr.  Robinson,  in  his  church  down  among 
the  mills  of  Holyoke,  sending  to  Amherst  Col- 
lege and  Mt.  Holyoke  College  for  students  to 
come  over  and  help  him.  It  rejoices  my  heart 
to  see  Chicago  Theological  Seminary  selecting 
as  its  president,  Dr.  Davis,  fresh  from  the  envi- 
ronment of  his  work  among  the  foreign  popula- 
tion of  New  Britain.  I  rejoice  to  find  Professor 
Bailey  of  Yale  bringing  himself  and  his  students 
into  touch  with  the  civic  life  of  New  Haven. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  pictures  upon  which 
I  ever  looked  is  the  picture  of  Jesus  together  with 


True  and  False  Culture  55 

the  fishermen.  There  He  is,  as  always,  the  true 
example.  We  see  the  light  of  culture  reflected 
from  His  shining  face  upon  the  countenances  of 
the  eager  toilers  of  the  sea.  Over  against  this, 
witness  the  false  culture  of  the  Scribes  and  Phari- 
sees. How  splendidly  Jesus  gathered  it  all  up 
when  He  declared  that  we  should  love  God  with 
mind  and  heart  and  strength,  and  our  brethren 
as  ourselves.  This  was  what  Jesus  meant  when 
He  took  this  text  of  Isaiah  and  applied  it  to  Him- 
self. 

True  and  false  culture :  the  false,  that  which 
removes  us  from  the  world  ;  the  true,  that  which 
gives  its  richness  and  becomes  richer  as  it  gives. 
The  false,  that  which  divides  humanity  into  se- 
lective groups  and  widens  the  gulf  between  men  ; 
the  true,  that  which  touches  every  point  of  hu- 
man life  with  human  sympathy. 

In  yonder  university  city,  there  is  that  great 
group  of  fine  scholars,  profound  thinkers,  earnest 
truth  seekers,  and  hard  toilers  by  the  light  of  the 
midnight  oil.  I  love  to  see  them  as  I  go  about 
among  those  massive  buildings. 

But  then  also,  as  I  pass  from  the  great  univer- 
sity to  take  my  train  to  come  home,  I  go  down 
through  the  other  parts  of  that  city  with  its  multi- 
tude of  all  the  races  of  mankind  and  I  think  how 
sad  it  is  that  the  one  touches  the  other  so  little. 

The  first  group  wends  its  solemn  way  back 
and  forth  from  the  class  room  to  the  attractive 


56       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

homes  upon  the  avenue,  while,  at  the  same  time, 
the  other  procession  also  passes  back  and  forth 
every  day  from  the  mills  and  shops  to  the  hum- 
bler homes  of  the  narrow  streets  and  alleys. 

They  never  cross  each  other's  paths.  They 
do  not  know  one  another.  They  do  not  under- 
stand each  other.  They  live  in  two  different 
worlds.  All  this  is  wrong. 

Again,  every  Sunday  morning  the  one  ele- 
ment gathers  in  the  churches,  or  in  the  College 
Chapel,  and  then  again  in  the  afternoon  in  its 
social  groups,  while  the  other  meets  in  the  in- 
dustrial meetings  and  its  other  brotherhoods. 
The  two  ought  to  meet  together. 

The  great  social  problem  of  to-day,  and  there 
is  no  greater  problem,  is  how  to  bring  these  to- 
gether, how  to  put  culture  at  the  service  of 
humanity  and  to  thus  fulfill  the  utterance  of  the 
Master,  "  He  among  you  that  is  greatest  is  he 
that  serveth  most." 

The  great  mission  of  culture :  "to  preach  good 
tidings  unto  the  meek,  to  bind  up  the  broken- 
hearted, to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives,  and 
the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound." 

Suppose  men  gained  this  truth  :  every  human 
being  a  child  of  God.  Would  it  transform  busi- 
ness? Would  society  be  changed?  Would  it 
transform  the  Christian  Church  ?  Instead  of  that 
we  have  gone  on,  and  we  go  on,  with  the  old 
doctrine  of  election.  Do  you  treat  your  fellows 


True  and  False  Culture  57 

in  your  business  life  as  though  they  were  chil- 
dren of  our  Father,  every  one  of  them  a  child  of 
God  ?  Your  clerks,  your  partners,  your  office- 
boy,  your  bookkeeper,  your  employer,  your 
fellow  clerks,  your  subordinates  ?  What  do  the 
trusts  of  capital  and  the  combinations  of  labour 
answer  to  the  question  ?  How  is  it  in  society  ? 
Is  it  met  by  a  few  charity  balls  ?  How  is  it  with 
women  in  the  home  and  in  the  social  realm? 
Does  the  society  in  which  you  move  recognize 
every  man  and  every  woman  as  the  child  of 
God?  How  is  it  with  your  store-boys,  your 
neighbours?  Are  we,  with  Jesus,  lovingly  re- 
ceiving, and  eating  with  publicans  and  sinners  ? 
Do  you  remember  that  these,  and  all  other  men 
and  women,  are  God's  children,  and  your 
brothers  and  sisters  ?  What  is  the  attitude  of 
our  nation  ?  Of  our  national  life  something 
ought  to  be  said.  We  are  the  marvel  of  the 
world  in  building  up  a  nation  out  of  all  the 
peoples  of  the  earth.  But  do  we  not  regard  and 
use  these  peoples  as  the  builders  of  our  high- 
ways, the  constructors  of  our  railroads  and  tillers 
of  our  ground,  rather  than  as  weaker  children  of 
God  to  be  helped  and  uplifted  by  their  stronger 
brothers  ? 

How  is  it  with  the  Church?  How  are  we 
interpreting  the  life  of  men  ?  We  cannot  say, 
"  Our  Father,"  unless  we  think  of  every  human 
being  as  our  brother.  Every  human  being  ;  how 


58       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

is  it  with  the  Church  ?  Do  we  ever  talk  of  the 
"  class  "  of  people  in  our  church  and  of  the  class 
of  people  we  want  there  ?  We  have  no  right  to 
interpret  our  individual  life  upward,  and  then 
interpret  our  brothers'  lives  downward.  That 
is  just  what  we  are  doing.  The  true  and  whole 
view  of  life  is  its  construction  in  the  terms  of 
fatherhood,  of  human  childhood,  and  of  universal 
brotherhood.  Nothing  less  will  do  for  Christ 
Moral  and  spiritual  evolution  ceases  to  be  such, 
and  is  immoral  unless  it  take  its  path  away  from 
the  scientific  law  of  the  struggle  for  individual 
existence  and  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  The 
analogy  must  break  here.  Moral  and  spiritual 
order  and  progress  is  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
for  the  sake  of  the  unfit.  It  is  the  uplifting  of 
the  weak.  It  is  the  fulfillment  of  Jesus'  "new 
commandment"  added  to  and  superseding  the 
decalogue  of  science.  It  is  universal,  absolutely 
universal.  It  must  be  so.  Not  one  stray  child 
may  be  left  out.  Deny  the  divine  childhood  of 
one  single,  solitary  human  being  in  the  remotest 
corner  of  the  world :  black,  white  or  yellow ; 
good,  bad  or  undetermined  ;  enemy  or  friend- 
deny  or  suppress  or  extinguish  the  God  in  any 
one  human  being  and  the  moral  order  of  the 
universe  is  broken,  there  is  no  God  worth  wor- 
shipping, and  you  yourself  are  not  a  child  of  any 
God.  Interpret  one  human  life  downward  and 
they  all  go  down.  Election  of  any  kind  is  ulti- 


True  and  False  Culture  59 

mate  atheism.  Not  one  stray  human  being  can 
be  left  out.  It  means  all  men,  of  every  colour, 
race  and  degree  of  goodness.  You  are  God's 
child  ;  so  then  is  the  humblest  servant  in  your 
home.  You  are  God's  child  ;  so  is  yonder  moral 
outcast.  You  are  God's  child  ;  so  is  that  bad  man 
behind  the  bars  of  human  justice.  It  means  every 
man  in  an  association  of  men.  It  also  means  every 
man  in  every  association.  Brotherhoods  cannot 
take  the  place  of  brotherhood.  It  is  not  gained 
when  every  black  man  considers  every  other 
black  man  his  brother.  It  is  not  gained  when 
every  white  man  considers  every  white  man  his 
brother.  It  is  not  gained  when  every  black  man 
considers  every  white  man  his  brother,  and  every 
white  man  every  black  man,  if  they  leave  out  a 
single  yellow  man.  It  is  not  won  when  every 
man  in  the  grocery  trade  is  brother  to  every 
other  man  in  the  grocery  trade.  Nor  when  every 
workman  at  the  bench  has  joined  the  Brother- 
hood of  Carpenters.  It  is  not  realized  when 
every  labouring  man  unites  in  brotherhood  with 
every  other  labouring  man,  any  more  than  it  is 
when  every  capitalist  so  considers  every  man  of 
capital. 

It  is  universal  and  reciprocal.  It  will  come 
when  every  business  man  says  "  brother "  to 
every  working  man.  It  will  not  come  until  every 
working  man  says  "brother"  to  his  employer. 
These  two  truths  stand  or  fall  together.  You 


60       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

cannot  give  the  upward  interpretation  to  your 
own  life,  if  you  give  the  downward  interpretation 
to  the  life  of  one  single  human  being.  In  terms 
of  absolute  and  universal  Fatherhood,  in  terms 
of  the  divine  childhood  in  the  man  construing, 
in  absolute  and  universal  brotherhood,  with  the 
eye  fixed,  not  on  the  form  of  dust,  but  on  the 
godlike  spirit  in  us,  with  the  uplifting  aim  of  the 
growing  of  that  spirit  in  self  and  other  men,  with 
a  heart  that  beats  in  love,  tenderness  and  compas- 
sion for  every  being  in  the  universe ;  ever  saying, 
"Father,"  "Father,"  "Father";  ever  saying, 
"Brother,"  "Brother,"  "  Brother  "—this  is  the 
Gospel. 

If  one  human  child  has  been  left  out  in  the 
Fatherhood  of  God,  every  man  is  left  out  with 
him,  and  there  is  neither  God  nor  Gospel  left, 
and  Haeckel  is  right.  Jesus  proclaimed,  and 
proclaims  to-day,  that  not  one  was  left  out.  And 
unless  the  feeling  of  your  heart  is  of  love  for 
every  human  being,  from  Jesus  Christ  down  to 
the  man  who  blacks  your  boots  and  the  woman 
who  washes  your  clothes,  and  you  can  say, 
"  Brother,"  "  Sister,"  you  cannot  say,  except  as 
a  vain  repetition,  as  the  heathen  do,  "  Our 
Father." 

I  went  into  a  hospital  the  other  day.  I  wit- 
nessed a  parable.  A  pale,  weak,  bloodless  man 
was  carried  in.  He  was  not  strong  enough  to 
valk.  He  did  not  even  come  of  his  own  volition. 


True  and  False  Culture  61 

Following  him  came  a  great,  strong  stalwart  man, 
glowing  with  health.  They  brought  them  to- 
gether. They  bared  an  arm  of  each  man.  They 
brought  them  into  fellowship  by  a  conductor 
which  carried  the  rich  blood  of  the  strong  into 
the  frail  body  of  the  weak.  That  is  the  meaning 
of  spiritual  culture  and  social  service. 


Ill 

REJOICING  IN  TRUTH 

WE  live  in  no  sluggard,  slothful  age  and 
generation.  We  are  in  an  era  of  great 
discoveries  and  marvellous  inventions. 
We  are  searching  out  the  hidden  secrets  of 
science  and  are  finding  ever  new  revelations  of 
the  infinite  energy.  Men  are  reaching  the  in- 
accessible, translating  unknown  tongues,  availing 
themselves  of  hitherto  undiscovered  forces. 

Coincident  with  this,  we  are  finding  divine 
revelations  in  the  order  of  human  life.  Social 
distinctions  are  being  broken  up.  Just  as  in 
science,  the  old  groups  and  classes  are  gone,  so 
in  human  life,  age-long  customs  are  yielding  to 
new  orders. 

Human  society  is  either  to  be  reconstructed 
or  destroyed ;  moral  precepts  are  finding  either 
their  destruction  or  fulfillment.  Religion  is  either 
departing  or  being  transformed.  On  all  sides 
men  are  timid,  doubtful,  and  are  both  questioning 
and  accepting  at  the  same  time.  It  is  so  difficult 
to  distinguish  between  change  and  dissolution. 

For  instance  in  the  pulpit,  some  preachers  are 
preaching  the  old,  which  they  only  half  believe, 
while  others  are  preaching  the  new,  which  they 

63 


Rejoicing  in  Truth  63 

have  only  partially  digested.  We  are  facing 
new  problems.  Everything  seems  new  and  un- 
tried. The  old  rules  will  not  work  ;  the  new  wine 
cannot  be  contained  in  the  old  bottles.  The 
homiletic  instruction  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago 
is  largely  displaced.  Wise,  strong,  and  search- 
ing must  be  the  moral  leader  of  to-day,  who  can 
maintain  the  balance  between  the  warm  heart 
and  the  clear  head. 

Thus,  it  is  easy  to  be  either  a  pessimist  or  an 
optimist,  and  still  easier  to  be  without  the  wed- 
ding garment,  speechless  before  the  problems  of 
our  larger  world.  If  we  simply  look  upon  the 
surface  of  things  we  are  doubtful.  If  we  can 
look  into  the  depths,  we  are  hopeful. 

The  Apostle  Paul  was  in  much  the  same 
situation  in  his  day,  and  in  his  letter  to  the 
Corinthian  Church  he  used  one  phrase  which 
gives  the  secret  of  his  great  leadership,  "  Rejoic- 
ing not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoicing  in  the  truth." 
So  the  real  leaders  of  to-day  are  those  who  are 
finding  and  rejoicing  in  the  truth.  The  sovereign 
need  of  our  generation,  with  its  plastic  social 
order,  is  men  who  will  work  for  creation  and  con- 
struction. We  may  well  hope  that  the  critic  and 
the  iconoclast  have  nearly  had  their  day.  For  a 
time  we  have  been  overcome  with  evil.  We  are 
now  ready  to  overcome  evil  with  good. 

All  thoughtful,  loving  men  feel  that  they  are 
socialists  in  some  right  sense  and  true  use  of 


64       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

that  much  misused  word.  But  there  are  two 
kinds ;  those  who  content  themselves  with  damn- 
ing the  world  and  those  whose  efforts  are  bent 
towards  saving  it.  Some  are  still  satisfied  to 
storm  and  scold,  while  others  are  seeking  to 
transform  and  to  mold.  These  latter  are  the 
leaders  of  to-day  and  of  to-morrow ;  those  who 
can  discern,  find,  and  develop  the  constructive 
elements  of  abiding  truth  in  the  midst  of  chang- 
ing forms. 

Jesus  entered  upon  such  an  age  and  He  de- 
clared that  He  was  come,  "  not  to  destroy  but  to 
fulfill/'  Therefore,  he  who  learned  the  secret  of 
Jesus,  even  though  he  were  the  least  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  was  greater  than  John  the 
Baptist. 

We  can  witness  this  truth  in  our  personal 
human  relations.  It  is  always  better  to  rejoice 
in  the  truth,  better  to  praise  the  good  than  to 
blame  the  bad.  Appreciation  is  better  than  de- 
preciation. Thus  it  is  that  we  call  out  the  best 
in  men.  In  the  treatment  of  the  child,  guidance 
is  infinitely  better  than  repression. 

Some  people  take  the  other  attitude  to  the  ex- 
tent, sometimes,  of  seeming  to  rejoice  in  iniquity. 
They  are  always  counting  the  tares  rather  than 
the  wheat.  Take  the  attitude  of  men  towards 
the  Christian  Church  !  They  are  telling  us  that 
it  is  in  a  serious  twist.  They  even  have  the  air 
of  rejoicing  in  what  they  term  its  iniquity. 


Rejoicing  in  Truth  65 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  there  never  was 
an  age  when  the  ideals  of  the  Church  were  so 
lofty  as  they  are  now.  It  is  true  that  it  has  less 
creed,  less  ceremony  and  pharisaic  punctilious- 
ness. Yet  it  never  was  so  vibrant  with  sympathy 
or  so  searching  as  to  life  and  action.  It  is  cast- 
ing off  its  selfish  individualism  and  is  more  and 
more  becoming  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Take 
its  ministry;  it  is  outreaching  to  every  human 
problem.  To  the  man  who  wishes  to  rejoice  in 
the  truth,  there  is  a  multitude  of  things  which  no 
man  can  number. 

This  is  not  a  plea  for  the  doctrine  of  laissez 
faire.  Criticism  has  its  place.  Even  destructive 
criticism  has  its  functions.  There  are  wrongs  to 
be  denounced  and  bad  men  to  be  rebuked.  But, 
at  best,  this  is  only  preparation.  Such  prophets 
did  their  work  from  Samuel  to  John  the  Baptist, 
but  it  only  prepared  the  way  for  Jesus  Christ. 
Even  such  prophets  would  have  been  useless 
without  their  Messianic  hope. 

The  real  spirit  of  progress  is  wondrously 
witnessed  in  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  Paul's  letter 
to  the  Church  at  Corinth.  He  was  writing,  very 
likely,  from  Ephesus,  a  sad  environment.  The 
church  to  which  he  was  writing  was  in  a  still 
sadder  environment.  Witness  how  he  seeks  to 
draw  forth  the  latent  good  in  them. 

They  are  to  have  the  spirit  of  long-suffering 
and  modesty.  They  must  be  not  easily  provoked, 


66       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

not  thinking  evil,  but  bearing  all  things,  believ- 
ing all  things,  hoping  all  things,  enduring  all 
things.  The  apostle  was  no  easy-going  moralist. 
He  saw  the  wrong  and  yet  he  believed  in  the 
right. 

So  the  order  of  the  world  in  which  we  live 
awaits  such  leaders,  not  those  whose  visages  do 
cream  and  mantle  like  a  standing  pool,  not 
those  who  unconsciously  rejoice  in  iniquity 
because  it  fulfills  their  own  dark  prophecies. 
We  need  men  large  enough  to  rejoice  in  the 
truth,  to  see  below  the  surface  and  to  distinguish 
the  difference  between  change  and  loss,  men  who 
can  work  away  with  unfaltering  faith  and  unfail- 
ing hope,  those  who  see  that  the  critic  or  icono- 
clast, the  prophet  of  denunciation,  has  his  place, 
but  that,  at  best,  he  is  only  the  forerunner  and 
should  say,  with  John  the  Baptist,  "There  cometh 
one  after  me  who  was  before  me."  The  saviours 
of  to-day  and  to-morrow  must  have  the  spirit  of 
Jesus,  not  to  destroy  but  fulfill,  the  state  of  mind 
of  Paul,  finding  the  truth  and  rejoicing  in  it. 

It  is  easy  to  break  the  bruised  reed  and  to 
quench  the  smoking  flax.  To  stand  up  and 
denounce  is  not  hard,  but  to  call  out  the  latent 
good,  to  educate,  and  to  develop  is  the  harder 
and  the  better  task.  The  one  method  only  needs 
vehemence.  The  other  calls  for  patience,  long- 
suffering,  and  all  the  qualities  which  Paul 
enumerates  under  the  general  name  of  charity. 


Rejoicing  in  Truth  6} 

Then  too,  after  all,  fulfillment  involves  destruc- 
tion, but  it  does  it  by  the  larger  process  of  dis- 
placement. 

We  have  here  one  of  the  great  measures  of 
character.  The  greatness  of  faith  and  hope  is 
simply  the  greatness  of  the  man's  own  soul.  He 
who  would  lift  up  must  ever  be  looking  up. 
Take  Jesus,  for  example ;  the  only  perfect  man 
who  ever  lived  was  the  one  who  had  the  most 
faith  in  imperfect  men. 

How  is  it  among  men?  Are  the  severest 
critics,  as  a  rule,  those  whose  own  lives  are  the 
loftiest?  Take  it  within  the  Church;  is  it  not 
rather  true  that  faith,  hope,  and  patience  are 
proportional  to  moral  attainment,  and  spiritual 
power? 

So,  let  us  believe  that  the  new  Church  will 
come  out  of  that  which  is  abiding  in  the  old. 
Let  us  have  faith  in  the  new  social  order  even 
though  it  may  come  through  a  painful  process. 
Such  is  God's  way.  The  new  home  will  be  fairer 
and  better  than  the  old  which  we  are  leaving, 
through  the  trying  process  of  the  removal  of  our 
household  goods. 

The  rocks  are  rending.  The  Son  of  Man  is  on 
the  cross,  but  after  the  third  day  the  stone  will 
be  rolled  away.  Truth  may  be  obscured  but  it  is 
not  dead.  We  shall  yet  see  the  Son  of  Man  be- 
yond the  clouds  of  heaven. 

Such  is  the  spirit  that  is  not  overcome  of  evil, 


68       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

but  which  overcomes  evil  with  good.  This  is  the 
faith  by  which  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  will 
become  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  And  now 
abideth  faith,  hope,  love,  believing,  hoping, 
enduring ; — rejoicing  not  in  iniquity  but  rejoic- 
ing in  the  truth. 


IV 

THE  HOPELESSNESS  OF  GODLESSNESS 

"TIT  THOM  have  I  in  heaven  but  Thee? 
\/\/  and  there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I 
desire  but  Thee. 

"  My  flesh  and  my  heart  faileth  :  But  God  is 
the  strength  of  my  heart,  and  my  portion  for- 
ever." 

A  thoughtful  man  came  to  me  the  other  day, 
and  after  reciting  a  long  list  of  great  and  griev- 
ous evils,  he  asked  :  "  How  can  a  man  be  an 
optimist  in  the  face  of  these  awful  realities?" 
He  said  :  "  So  long  as  one  remains  an  idealist, 
and  interprets  life  in  ideal  terms,  his  life  is  filled 
with  hope.  But  again  and  again  the  great 
actualities  of  life  bear  upon  him,  sadden  his 
heart,  and  his  great  ideal  is  clouded  by  the 
shadows  of  actual  life." 

It  is  always  very  encouraging  to  a  modern 
preacher  to  have  a  Nicodemus  come  to  him  in 
this  thoughtful  way.  We  wish  that  they  would 
come  oftener,  even  though  it  be  to  ask :  "  How, 
in  the  midst  of  prevailing  and  triumphant  evil, 
can  we  labour  on  with  hope  and  faith  ?  " 

In  all  probability  the  Seventy-third  Psalm  was 
written  during  the  exile,  or,  at  any  rate,  in  some 

69 


70       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

similar  experience.  The  children  of  Israel  find 
themselves  in  the  midst  of  a  terrible  environment 
of  evil.  It  is  evil  of  a  kind  particularly  abhorrent 
to  them.  The  highest  of  their  associations  and 
ideals  are  ruthlessly  violated.  The  most  sacred 
things  of  their  life  are  trampled  under  foot.  The 
first  part  of  this  Psalm  pictures  the  prosperity  of 
the  ungodly  in  very  bitter  terms  ;  the  evil  of  the 
world  is  "  painful "  to  the  writer.  But  the  second 
part  of  the  Psalm  is  full  of  a  triumphant  tone. 

This  is  the  striking  characteristic  of  this  in- 
spired book.  It  is  a  great  alternating  utterance 
of  hopelessness  and  hope.  In  many  of  these 
Psalms  we  have,  first,  the  bitter  cry  of  the  out- 
raged sense  of  righteousness,  with  a  correspond- 
ing hopelessness.  Then  the  second  part  sub- 
limely rises  to  an  assuring  utterance  of  faith  and 
hope.  Again  and  again  the  same  Psalm  consists 
of  a  dirge  and  an  oratorio,  in  very  striking  con- 
trast. There  is  a  wonderful  and  apparently  con- 
tradictory contrast  in  mood.  In  general  the 
Psalm  begins  in  despair  but  ends  in  a  sublime 
note  of  confidence. 

"  Lord,  how  are  they  increased  that  trouble  me. 
Many  are  they  that  rise  up  against  me."  So  the 
Psalm  begins,  but  it  rises  on  and  on,  and  before 
it  reaches  the  end  it  swells  out  into  a  great 
chorus  of  hope :  "  But  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  a 
shield  for  me,  my  glory  and  a  lifter  up  of  my 
head."  Another  begins,  "  I  am  weary  with  my 


The  Hopelessness  of  Godlessness         7 1 

groaning ;  all  the  night  I  make  my  bed  to 
swim  ;  I  water  my  couch  with  my  tears."  Then 
it  suddenly  rises :  "  Depart  from  me,  O  ye 
workers  of  iniquity,  for  the  Lord  has  heard  the 
voice  of  my  weeping."  It  is  like  two  great 
choruses  ;  the  one  a  profound  question,  the  other 
a  great  and  satisfying  answer. 

Sometimes  the  despair  is  almost  bottomless. 
"  Help,  Lord,  for  the  godly  man  faileth :  for  the 
faithful  fail  from  among  the  children  of  men." 
Then  like  a  resounding  echo  :  "  I  have  set  the 
Lord  before  me  ;  because  He  is  on  my  right  hand 
I  shall  not  be  moved." 

So  they  move  on,  with  their  alternating  notes, 
from  the  extreme  of  despair  to  the  height  of 
faith,^the  sense  of  horror  ever  changing  place  with 
the  sense  of  hope.  There  is  unity  among  them 
in  this,  that  their  one  constant  and  unfailing 
message  is,  "  Hope  thou  in  God."  They  all  end 
in  the  same  last  resort.  It  is  a  wonderfully 
vibrating,  pulsating  picture,  full  of  dignity, 
breathing  sincerity,  alive  with  pathos,  charged 
with  the  same  solemnity,  yet  ever  vibrant  with 
unfailing  and  responding  confidence,  filled  with 
the  gloom  of  realism,  yet  fuller  still  of  a  magnif- 
icent and  glowing  idealism. 

These  Psalms  are  but  the  reflection  of  the 
varied  and  vividly  contrasting  moods  of  any 
seriously  thoughtful  man.  No  real  man  can 
entirely  escape  the  sense  of  despair  unless  he  is 


72       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

blinded    by  moral  astigmatism   or  asleep  with 
stupefying  selfishness. 

The  hopelessness  of  godlessness.  A  godless 
world  is  a  hopeless  world.  A  world  under  the 
guidance  of  God  is  a  hopeful  world,  despite  all 
its  seeming  hopelessness.  By  godless  we  mean 
the  want  of  a  great  faith  in  the  infinite  guidance 
and  sovereignty.  By  hopeless  we  mean  the  ulti- 
mate victory  of  evil. 

This  suggests  two  dangers  which  come  to  a 
man  who  thus  deeply  and  seriously  reflects. 
The  first  is  the  danger  of  pessimism,  which  is 
really  atheism.  The  second  is  a  false  optimism 
which  obscures  the  actual  evil  by  a  one-sided 
view  of  the  ideal.  Any  man  who  takes  life 
seriously  finds  himself  facing  a  world  which 
sometimes  makes  him  shudder,  fills  his  soul  with 
horror,  and  at  times  with  awful  doubts  and  occa- 
sional flashes  of  despair,  a  world  dark  with 
griefs  and  graves,  so  dark  that  men  cry  out 
against  the  heavens. 

Perhaps  he  may  have  the  will  to  shut  himself 
up  within  the  walls  of  his  comfortable  home, 
engross  himself  with  his  own  selfish  interests, 
ignore  the  actual  life  about  him,  and  give  him- 
self to  selfish  thought.  But  if  a  man  bravely 
faces  life,  I  doubt  if  any  serious  soul  has  not  had 
moments  when  the  questions  have  instinctively 
arisen :  Can  there  be  a  God  ?  If  there  be  a 
God,  does  He  rule  the  world?  If  there  be  a 


The  Hopelessness  of  Godlessness         73 

God,  and  He  rules  the  world,  can  He  be  entirely 
good? 

Read  to-morrow  morning's  paper.  Witness 
its  story  of  the  contemporary  world.  Read  its 
recital  of  degrading  selfish  human  pleasures ;  of 
the  slaveries  of  men's  unholy  passions,  of  the 
doings  of  men's  sordid  greed  of  gold.  Read  its 
story  of  the  selling  of  the  souls  of  men,  the  ever- 
lasting blighting  of  the  holy  emblem  of  woman- 
hood. Listen  to  its  tales  of  bribery,  corruption, 
and  the  prostitution  of  life's  most  sacred  trusts, 
of  the  oppressions  of  the  weak  and  the  poor,  of 
its  usurious  and  unearned  profits,  the  devouring 
of  widows'  houses  and  the  binding  of  heavy  bur- 
dens grievous  to  be  borne.  Witness  its  manifold 
repetitions,  in  actual  life,  of  the  parable  of  Dives 
at  his  table  and  Lazarus  cringing  at  the  gate. 
Look  at  the  dead  men's  bones  which  are  daily 
drawn  from  whited  sepulchres.  Pursue  the  reci- 
tal of  its  hypocrisies,  its  pretenses  of  long  prayers, 
its  hollow  philanthropies,  its  specious,  degrad-* 
ing  codes  of  conduct,  its  heartless  social  castes, 
its  profanations  of  the  sacred  relations  of  the  altar 
and  the  home.  Let  any  man  do  this  and  if  he  is 
not  heartsick  he  has  no  heart  to  be  sick.  If  his 
soul  is  not  cast  down  he  can  hardly  have  a  soul 
to  be  cast  down.  A  deep-thinking,  serious  man, 
unless  he  has  the  witness  of  some  prophetic 
light,  cannot,  as  he  faces  the  real  world,  bear  the 
weight  of  the  burden  of  his  own  heavy  heart 


74       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

But  the  true  seer  while  he  thus  views  things 
as  they  are,  while  he  thus  feels  like  the  prophets  of 
old,  must  also  answer  to  the  other  mood  of  the 
psalmist,  and  say,  "  I  will  lift  up  mine  eyes  unto 
the  hills,  from  whence  cometh  my  help." 

For  if  we  have  no  hope  in  God  we  live  in  a  hope- 
less world.  This  world  would  be  too  much  for 
us  without  a  great  abiding  faith  in  the  Infinite. 
As  I  read,  not  long  ago,  Professor  Haeckel's 
"  Riddle  of  the  Universe,"  I  said  as  I  closed  it, 
"  How  can  a  man  live  in  such  a  universe  as  his  ? 
It  is  not  a  riddle,  it  is  a  great  mockery  and  lie." 
The  materialist,  the  man  who  has  no  God  in 
whom  he  can  have  a  great  faith,  how  such  a 
man  can  want  to  live  I  cannot  see  or  understand. 
As  he  looks  out  on  the  lust,  the  greed,  the  cruelty 
of  the  world  he  asks  with  Paul,  "  Who  is  suffi- 
cient for  these  things  ?"  He  is  bound  up  by  two 
propositions,  one  of  which  he  must  accept.  It  is 
either  God  and  unquenchable  hope  or  atheism 
and  absolute  hopelessness.  If  he  is  to  be  a  great, 
strong  man,  he  must  lift  his  eyes  from  the  val- 
leys of  the  shadow  of  death  and  look  up  to  the 
eternal  hills.  His  moral  world  is,  at  first  sight, 
just  as  the  natural  world  was  to  the  infant  race. 
It  is  a  great  enigma  haunting  him  with  a  great 
fear. 

But  even  in  ancient  times  man  began  to  look  for 
a  deeper  meaning  of  the  natural  order.  The 
Book  of  Job  is  a  magnificent  example  of  the  in- 


The  Hopelessness  of  Godlessness         75 

terpretation  of  nature.  The  Nineteenth  Psalm  is 
a  splendid  elucidation  of  the  universe.  Thus,  as 
men  looked  with  longing,  the  light  came.  By 
and  by  great  and  reverent  scientists,  like  Drum- 
mond  and  Fiske,  witnessed  to  the  moral  impli- 
cations in  the  order  of  nature.  So,  as  men  got 
the  sweep  of  vision,  they  began  to  see  that  down 
through  the  farthest  ages  back  one  increasing 
purpose  runs.  Men  have  discovered  purpose 
and  intention,  goal  and  progress  in  the  same 
way.  To  meet  the  moral  cry  of  man  we  must 
have  God  as  our  interpreter  of  the  human  moral 
order.  Unless  we  do  so  we  are  like  infants  cry- 
ing in  the  night  and  with  no  language  but  a  cry. 

But  if  we  do  find  God  we  can  say,  "  God  is  our 
refuge  and  our  strength,  a  very  present  help  in 
trouble.  Therefore  we  will  not  fear  though  the 
earth  be  removed  and  the  mountains  be  carried 
into  the  heart  of  the  sea :  Though  the  waters 
thereof  roar  and  be  troubled,  though  the  moun- 
tains shake  with  the  swelling  thereof.  God  is  in 
the  midst  of  her,  she  shall  not  be  moved.  God 
shall  help  her  and  that  right  early." 

Here  is  the  eternal  difference  between  the 
hopelessness  of  atheism  and  faith  in  God. 

You  may  find  sin  almost  everywhere.  You 
may  find  God  everywhere,  in  great  brave  souls. 
Such  a  soul  is  an  absolute  impossibility  in  a  god- 
less universe.  You  may  find  God  in  your  own 
brave  soul.  Unless  we  do  find  God  at  the  heart 


76       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

of  this  perplexing  universal  order  we  live  in  a 
hopeless  world  in  which  no  real  man  would  want 
to  live.  The  world  has  had  its  great  acres  of 
darkness  again  and  again  lighted  by  the  fires  of 
great  souls,  and  they  have  always  been  great, 
God-believing  men.  Of  such  were  these  cour- 
ageous psalmists,  the  reformers  like  Luther  and 
his  fellows,  the  Apostle  Paul,  who  spoke  of  men 
"  without  hope  and  without  God  in  the  world." 
Such  a  soul  was  Jesus  Christ,  passing  back  and 
forth  from  the  dark  plains  of  life  to  the  mountain- 
side of  prayer. 

I  confess  that  some  of  the  great  questions  of 
life  are  too  much  for  me.  I  mean  such  questions 
as  that  of  human  destiny.  I  must  leave  them  to 
God  and  I  must  have  a  God  to  whom  I  may 
leave  them.  Here  it  is  that  we  see  man  at  his 
best,  bravely  facing  life,  never  trying  to  effect  a 
cowardly  escape,  but  ever  with  his  hand  out- 
reached  for  God.  We  see  man  at  his  finest 
when  we  witness  the  great  Godward  outgoing  of 
his  soul.  Here  he  is  at  his  noblest  It  is  a  holy 
inspiration  to  watch  the  mind  of  Plato  as  he 
struggles  to  express  his  infinite  vision  of  the 
eternal  goodness  at  the  heart  of  the  universe,  to 
meditate  upon  Spinoza,  who  was,  as  every  great 
man  must  be,  a  God-intoxicated  man,  to  sit  down 
with  Kant,  to  participate  with  him  in  his  great 
internal  intellectual  warfare,  seeking  God  in  one 
place  when  he  cannot  find  Him  in  another,  crying 


The  Hopelessness  of  Godlessness         7  7 

out  like  Job,  "  O  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find 
Him."  If  is  a  great  help  also  to  sit  down  with 
another  of  the  psalmists  as  he  bravely  sings,  in 
the  midst  of  his  enemies  and  in  the  face  of  great 
fears  and  transgressions,  "Whither  shall  I  go 
from  Thy  spirit  or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  Thy 
presence  ?  If  I  ascend  up  into  heaven  Thou  art 
there ;  if  I  make  my  bed  in  hell  Thou  art  there ; 
if  I  say  surely  the  darkness  will  overwhelm  me 
and  the  light  about  me  shall  be  night,  even  the 
darkness  hideth  not  from  Thee  but  the  night 
shineth  as  the  day.  " 

This  is  the  great  brave  view  of  life — when  we 
feel  that  no  falsehood  can  eternally  defeat,  that 
no  right  can  forever  be  crushed,  that  there  is  an 
everlasting  goodness  which  no  evil  can  ever  put  to 
death,  that  this  universe  has  not  gotten  away  from 
God.  Some  men  are  saying  that  they  are  realists, 
some  that  they  are  idealists.  The  true  realist 
is  he  who  sees  the  depths,  but  not  the  depths 
alone.  The  true  idealist  is  not  the  one  who 
soothes  himself  with  dreams.  The  true  man  is 
he  who  sees  and  is  touched  by  the  wrongs  of  the 
world,  is  saddened  by  them,  whose  heart  aches, 
whose  tears  are  sometimes  his  meat,  but  who 
also  transfigures  the  picture  with  the  sunlight  of 
the  face  of  God.  Then  he  can  go  forth,  serious 
and  strong,  joyful  and  courageous,  to  transform 
that  real,  so  far  as  he  may  touch  it,  into  the  ideal 
of  his  vision.  He  will,  like  the  psalmist,  have  his 


78       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

alternating  moods.  Sometimes  the  world  will 
look  black.  Sometimes  it  will  look  like  a  great 
unanswerable  doubt.  It  will  do  no  harm  if  he 
lets  it  move  the  waters  of  his  heart,  but  he  must 
never  let  this  lead  him  to  forsake  the  Being  with- 
out whom  it  is  a  hopeless  world. 

We  have  touched  here  the  supreme  and  sover- 
eign concern  of  human  life.  This  longing  for 
God  is  the  finest  yearning  of  the  human  soul. 
The  most  momentous  crises  and  the  finest  hours 
of  our  life  are  when  we  cry  out  and  say,  "  O  that 
I  knew  where  I  might  find  Him ! "  The  Holy 
of  Holies  of  human  life  is  the  place  where  the 
individual' human  soul,  in  the  inviolable  solitude 
of  its  own  being,  faces  towards  the  eternal  reality, 
and  asks  for  God  with  a  great  unutterable  cry. 

So  should  we  live  and  strive  and  hope  and  pray, 
with  the  courage  that  faces  the  great  moral  prob- 
lems of  life,  and  with  the  bravery  of  an  abiding 
faith,  that  as  the  eternal  power  in  whom  we  live 
and  move  and  have  our  being  hath  taken  the 
chaos  of  the  molten  mists  of  ages  past  and 
wrought  this  universe  of  reason  and  of  order  ; 
that  as  His  molding  hand  hath  raised  man  from 
the  crouching  beast  until  he  bears  the  image  of 
Himself ;  that  as  He  has,  from  age  to  age,  brought 
on  this  world  by  great  movements  of  history  to 
higher  ideals  and  larger  visions ;  that  as  He  has 
for  these  two  thousand  years  been  lifting  hu- 
manity by  the  power  of  the  personality  of  Him 


The  Hopelessness  of  Godlessness         79 

who  is  the  brightness  of  His  glory  and  the  image 
of  His  person  ;  so  His  hand  is  still  upon  the  world, 
so  His  eternal  designs  are  being  carried  out,  so 
Christ  still  lives  in  our  midst,  and  He  will  be 
our  guide,  our  Father,  our  strong  deliverer,  our 
mighty  fortress,  who  wilt  continue  in  His  undying 
affection  until  the  world  is  won  by  the  appeal  of 
beauty,  truth  and  goodness. 

He  who  has  commanded  the  morning  and 
made  the  dayspring  to  know  his  place,  who 
canst  bind  the  influence  of  Pleiades  and  loosen 
the  bands  of  Orion,  who  biddest  the  lightnings, 
who  guideth  the  stars  in  their  courses  in  a 
universe  unthinkable  in  its  wonder  and  greatness, 
hast  might  and  power  enough  to  guide  the 
moral  movements  of  mankind,  and  as  He  hast, 
out  of  the  depths  of  universal  chaos,  made  the 
morning  stars  to  sing  in  glory,  so  He  will  bring 
His  moral  purposes  to  pass  within  His  own  good 
time,  with  whom  a  thousand  years  are  like  a  day, 
and  goodness,  righteousness  and  truth  shall  fill 
the  earth  with  their  praises. 

Thus  may  we  go  on  in  our  work  with  God, 
and  by  His  help,  following  Christ,  carrying  our 
crosses,  meeting  our  disappointments,  facing  our 
Jerusalems,  standing  before  our  Pilates,  bearing 
our  sufferings,  shedding  abroad  our  love,  preach- 
ing the  kingdom  and  teaching  righteousness,  and 
if  need  be  ascending  our  Calvarys,  that,  with  our 
Master,  we  may  help  to  be  the  saviours  of  the 


80       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

world,  from  its  sin,  its  suffering  and  its  moral 
wretchedness,  and  by  our  brave  and  loving 
service,  righting  its  wrongs  and  helping  God. 
And  even  greater  than  the  great  haggard  hope- 
lessness of  godlessness  may  be  the  unutterable 
hopefulness  of  our  abiding  faith.  So  should  we 
live  and  do  our  work  with  a  great  serious  sense 
of  a  sovereign  joy,  which  no  man  taketh  from  us. 


V 

THE  UNIVERSAL  LAW  OF  SERVICE 

UT  it  shall  not  be  so  among  you ;  But 
whosoever  will  be  great  among  you,  let 
him  be  your  minister ;  and  whosoever 
will  be  chief  among  you,  let  him  be  your  servant ; 
even  as  the  Son  of  Man  came,  not  to  be  minis- 
tered unto  but  to  minister." 

The  thought  of  Jesus  might  better  be  ex- 
pressed by  saying^that  He  came  not  "  only  "  to  be 
ministered  unto.  He  did  receive  and  gladly  ac- 
cept the  ministry  and  support  of  His  disciples. 
He  felt  a  thrill  of  joy  at  their  devotion.  He 
speaks  by  way  of  emphasis.  His  chief est  joy 
was  that  of  loving  ministry,  suffering  service  and 
the  giving  of  His  life.  Yet  perhaps  it  was  no 
less  the  joy  of  His  heart  to  see  His  followers  par- 
ticipating in  that  same  mutual  loving  ministry. 
Indeed,  He  said  that  this  service,  to  each  other 
and  to  mankind,  was  their  best  ministry  to  Him. 

He  gave  utterance  here  to  the  twofold  law  of 
life.  Man  is  both  to  be  served  and  to  serve. 
Jesus  saw  the  two  aspects  of  religion ;  and  taught 
that  the  ultimate  expression  of  religion  was  in 
this  law  of  service.  The  utterances  of  the  Master 
were  always  brief  and  simple.  Yet  every  one  of 

81 


82       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

them  implies  a  truth  as  deep  as  the  ocean  of 
truth  itself  and  implicates  a  principle  as  wide  as 
the  universe  of  God.  Witness  how  fundamental, 
how  universal,  how  absolutely  essential  is  this 
truth  of  the  law  of  service. 

To  show  how  universal  it  is  we  might  begin 
with  nature.  The  great  scientists,  when  they 
have  been  reverent  as  well  as  great,  have  made 
spiritual  discoveries  in  the  natural  order  of  life. 
We  may  witness  the  working  of  this  law  on 
every  hand.  We  find  interdependence  and  in- 
terrelation in  the  great  solar  system.  Here  no- 
body liveth  to  itself  or  dieth  to  itself.  In  the 
unity  of  the  universe  we  find  everywhere  a  mu- 
tual dependence.  Let  one  part  cease  its  work, 
lay  down  its  service,  and  universal  cosmos  be- 
comes universal  chaos.  Let  the  sun  say,  "  I  will 
no  longer  render  service  in  this  common  order  1" 
Let  the  swinging,  whirling  planet  say,  "  I  will  no 
more  do  my  task ! "  And  universal  disaster 
would  follow.  They  are  all  bound  up  in  mu- 
tual service.  Let  even  the  smallest  part  of  the 
great  machine  get  out  of  order  and  the  whole 
mechanism  may  be  destroyed.  Thus  all  things 
live  upon  each  other.  The  physical  universe  is 
a  great  system  of  symbolic  unselfishness.  So  let 
the  soil  and  rain  refuse  to  serve  their  fellows,  the 
flowers  of  the  field,  and  the  earth  is  no  longer  a 
garden  of  delight  for  the  vision  and  utterance  of 
the  poet.  But  while  they  do  their  task  of  minis- 


The  Universal  Law  of  Service  83 

taring,  the  lily  of  the  field  is  clothed  in  beauty 
greater  than  that  of  Solomon  in  his  array  of 
glory.  Let  the  elements  of  nature  refuse  to  pro- 
vide for  the  birds  of  the  air  and  their  song  no 
longer  yields  its  joy. 

Two  books  have  been  written  in  recent  years 
which  deserve  careful  consideration  from  all 
thoughtful  people.  One  is  Drummond's  "  As- 
cent of  Man,"  and  the  other,  John  Fiske's 
"  Through  Nature  to  God."  Professor  Drum- 
mond  finds  in  natural  evolution,  first,  the  strug- 
gle for  life  ;  but  also  the  struggle  for  the  life  of 
others,  from  the  very  dawn  of  life.  Professor 
Fiske  speaks  of  what  he  calls  "  the  cosmic  roots 
of  love  and  self-sacrifice."  He  tells  us  that  na- 
ture has  relation  to  the  great  moral  end  of  mutual 
ministry.  He  says :  "  I  think  that  it  can  be 
shown  that  in  that  far-off  morning  of  the  world, 
when  the  morning  stars  sang  together  and  the 
sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy,  the  beauty  of  self- 
sacrifice  and  disinterested  love  formed  the  chief 
burden  of  the  mighty  theme."  "  The  very  doc- 
trine of  evolution  is  the  everlasting  reality  of  re- 
ligion." "We  catch  glimpses  of  the  cosmic 
roots  of  love  and  self-sacrifice."  Perhaps  our 
highest  and  most  beautiful  type  of  service  is  in 
motherhood,  and  the  greatest  thinkers  of  our  day 
find  nature  to  be  full  of  a  beautiful  maternity. 
God  has  thus  made  an  altruistic  natural  order,  in 
which  the  chiefest  is  the  greatest  server. 


84       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

We  find  this  same  law  in  the  relation  between 
man  and  nature.  We  are  accustomed  to  think 
of  nature  as  serving  man,  yielding  her  bounty 
for  his  food,  giving  her  stuff  for  his  clothing,  let- 
ting him  harness  her  lightnings  and  her  winds  to 
do  his  bidding.  But  here  again  the  law  of  serv- 
ice is  mutual  and  universal ;  man  must  nurture 
and  thoroughly  care  for  her.  He  must  till  her 
soil,  he  must  care  for  his  cattle  and  his  sheep, 
and  give  them  food  and  shelter.  Sometimes  he 
must  take  them  in  his  arms  and  bear  them  to 
their  fold.  Thus  the  association  of  man  and  na- 
ture is  one  of  interchanging  care  and  service. 
They  help  each  other,  and  neither  can  live  with- 
out the  other. 

This  same  truth  is  just  as  true  of  God  and 
man.  In  the  infant  ages  of  the  race  it  was 
thought  of  as  a  one-sided  service ;  man  must  oc- 
cupy himself  with  sacrifice  and  propitiation.  To- 
day, however,  we  think  of  God  as  a  providing 
father  of  men,  the  willing  servant  of  His  people. 

We  might  go  back  in  our  thought  a  little  and 
think  of  the  relation  between  nature  and  God,  of 
God  delighting  in  His  own  creation  and  rejoicing 
in  the  singing  of  the  morning  stars  together. 
But  the  truth  is  most  beautiful  in  the  relations 
of  God  and  man.  Dr.  George  A.  Gordon,  in  a 
recent  sermon,  said  some  things  which  might 
once  have  been  considered  as  audacity  or  even 
blasphemy.  He  said  that  God,  having  made 


The  Universal  Law  of  Service  85 

man,  was  under  obligation  to  treat  him  well,  and 
that  He  owed  him  life  and  sympathy  and  love 
and  service.  So  the  delight  of  God  is  the  ex- 
pression of  His  love  by  helping  man.  His  joy  is 
also  in  the  love  and  mutual  sacrifice  of  man  to 
his  brethren.  This  leads  us  to  one  of  the  finest 
illustrations  of  our  thought.  God  loves,  above 
all  things,  to  see  us  helping  and  serving  each 
other.  So  He  has  put  us  in  a  world  where  we 
must  do  so  or  die.  Look  about  on  our  common 
life  and  witness  how  it  is  transfigured  by  unself- 
ish service  and  mutual  ministry. 

I  go  out  to-morrow  morning,  and  as  I  pass  the 
factory  with  its  busy  hum,  I  think  of  men  and 
women  there,  sometimes  with  very  tired  bodies, 
hard  at  work  for  many  hours  every  day,  prepar- 
ing for  me  the  clothing  that  I  wear,  or  the 
materials  with  which  I  build  my  comfortable 
home.  I  pass  on  to  the  busy  store.  There 
stands  the  woman,  perhaps  with  tired  feet  and 
aching  back,  ready  to  serve  my  wants.  I  go  by 
the  schoolhouse,  and  I  think  of  the  teacher  with 
her  tired  head  aching,  perhaps,  in  this  great 
service.  I  meet  the  lawyer  hastening  along  with 
his  green  bag,  that  he  may  serve  his  clients  and 
see  that  they  have  their  rights.  He  reminds  me 
of  the  judge  sitting  for  long  patient  hours  in  the 
close  room  to  see  that  men  have  justice.  My 
eyes  wander  to  the  summit  of  the  hill  and  rest  upon 
the  hospital  where  the  soft-voiced,  patient  nurses 


86       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

serve  in  their  soothing  ministry.  I  meet  the 
physician,  after  his  nightly  vigil,  on  his  way  to 
help  his  fellows.  I  take  the  street-car  and  sit  in 
comfort,  while  another  man  faces  the  cold,  winter 
winds,  that  he  may  carry  me  upon  some  errand 
of  mercy.  The  call  comes  from  some  far  distant 
loved  one.  There  stands  the  strong,  brave  man 
with  his  hand  upon  the  lever  and  the  throttle 
that  he  may  bear  me  to  my  destination. 

As  I  return  to  my  home,  in  the  silent  watches 
of  the  night,  I  pass  the  policeman,  shivering  on 
the  corner  in  his  self-sacrificing  service  of  protec- 
tion. I  am  awakened  from  my  sleep  by  the 
alarm  bell,  and  I  think  of  those  who  are  ever 
ready  to  risk  their  lives  to  protect  me  and  my 
home  from  the  dread  ravages  of  fire.  Or  I  hear 
upon  some  stormy  night  the  warning  from 
yonder  lighthouse.  I  look  out  and  see  its  ever- 
burning beacon.  There  sits  the  watchman 
through  the  long  hours  of  the  night  to  protect 
the  sailor  on  the  sea,  and  he  reminds  me  of  those 
who  brave  the  dangers  of  the  deep  in  this  great 
ministry  of  men.  I  look  about  my  home.  How 
many  hours  of  work  it  took  to  build  it !  I  find  it 
in  comfortable  order  and  think  in  gratitude  of  the 
domestic  who  serves  by  night  and  day  to  keep 
it  so.  I  sit  down  to  the  telephone,  and  at  the 
other  end  waits  the  girl  who  often  must  endure, 
perhaps,  my  impatient  exactions,  ready  to  serve 
my  instant  call.  I  look  out  of  the  window,  and 


The  Universal  Law  of  Service  87 

there  comes  the  newsboy  with  my  paper,  the 
grocer  with  my  food,  the  postman  with  my  letters. 
The  great  team  comes  up  the  driveway  with  my 
fuel  that  I  may  be  comfortable  through  the  winter 
months.  And  I  must  not  forget  the  busy  man 
of  trade  and  of  commerce  with  his  weighty  re- 
sponsibilities as  he  directs  this  indispensable 
ministry.  Inspired  by  these  thoughts,  I  wish  to 
send  out  to  the  world  this  message  of  love  and 
help  and  beauty.  The  printer  takes  it  from  me 
and  hands  it  to  the  binder,  and  sends  it  out  to 
give  men  hope  and  faith.  We  are  a  great  and 
prosperous  nation  because  men  give  themselves 
in  this  and  countless  other  ways  to  serve  their 
country. 

Everywhere  this  world  and  life  are  instinct 
with  service.  We  are  all  living  on  each  other. 
It  calls  for  the  beautiful  qualities  of  patience, 
sympathy,  compassion,  gratitude  and  prayer.  It 
is  ever  calling  out  the  best  and  noblest  in  us.  We 
do  it  all  for  pay  ?  You  may  look  at  life  in  that  mis- 
erable way  if  you  will,  but,  as  Shakespeare  says, 
"  Nature  teaches  beasts  to  know  their  friends. " 
Look  out  upon  the  wider  life  of  mankind. 
Think  of  the  nations  with  their  interchanging 
commerce,  each  serving  the  other  with  food  and 
clothing.  Think  of  the  great  body  of  immi- 
grants ;  they  come  to  us  that  we  may  give  them 
protection  and  a  chance  in  life,  but  they  also 
serve  us,  They  build  our  highways,  they  go 


88       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

down  into  the  deep  mines  to  help  us  keep  our 
houses  warm. 

Perhaps  this  great  law  is  seen  at  its  best  in  the 
relations  of  the  home.  The  father  and  husband 
toils  for  long  hours  that  he  may  bring  comfort  to 
his  loved  ones,  that  he  may  provide  for  the  wife 
and  educate  his  children.  And  while  he  is 
doing  this,  the  mother  serves  patiently  in  his 
home,  in  order  that  she  may  make  it  happy  for 
him  and  bring  rest  after  his  weariness.  There, 
by  the  fireside,  sit  the  aged  father  and  mother, 
who  have  already  spent  their  lives,  while  the 
children  and  grandchildren  wait  upon  them,  that 
at  eventide  for  them  there  may  be  light. 

This  law  pervades  the  universe,  natural  and 
spiritual.  We  are  in  each  other's  hands.  We 
are  absolutely  dependent  upon  each  other.  The 
comfort  of  all  is  impaired  when  any  cease  to  do 
their  service.  Let  the  strike  come  in  the  mines, 
and  men  shiver  in  their  cold  houses.  It  is  all 
mutual ;  we  cannot  live  without  each  other's 
service.  The  true  balance  of  life  is  gained  when 
we  are  joyously  giving  and  gratefully  receiving. 
It  is  a  beautiful  world  and  a  beautiful  universe  in 
which  nature,  God  and  man  are  in  the  mutual 
and  interchangeable  service  of  each  other.  It  is 
sadly  true  that  all  this  is  not  actual,  that,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  men  try  to  live  on  the  efforts  of 
their  fellows.  But  it  is  a  degrading  and  miser- 
able view  of  life  to  look  at  it  as  a  great  crowded 


The  Universal  Law  of  Service  89 

bargain  counter,  where  women  are  trying  to  get 
something  for  nothing.  It  is  wretched  to  think 
of  life  as  a  great  stock  exchange,  where  men  are 
madly  seeking  to  gain  at  the  expense  of  one 
another. 

That  is  not  the  true  way  of  viewing  life.  It 
will  be  an  unmitigated  misery  unless  you  are 
willing  to  idealize  it.  But  if  you  will  look  at  it 
in  the  light  of  this  sublime  truth  of  Jesus,  you 
may  make  it  noble,  you  may  make  it  happy  and 
your  hardest  toil  may  be  an  abiding  joy.  When 
Jesus  was  called  upon  to  declare  the  great  ques- 
tion of  human  destiny,  He  drew  a  very  striking 
picture.  He  represented  men  as  ministering  to 
Him  inasmuch  as  they  ministered  to  one  an- 
other. 

What  then  shall  we  do  when  we  think  of  this 
vital  truth?  We  must  say,  "  I  am  receiving 
this  great  service,  and  in  return  I  must  render  a 
full  equivalent/'  Thus  mercy  is  twice  blessed. 
It  blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes. 

The  key  of  human  happiness  is  found  in  con- 
stant, conscious  participation,  in  mutual  sym- 
pathy and  gratitude  and  patience,  in  this  great 
universal  law,  receiving  by  giving  and  giving  in 
receiving,  saving  by  losing  and  losing  by  saving. 
We  must  bear  one  another's  burdens  and  we 
must  let  others  bear  our  burdens.  But  we  must 
ever  be  more  solicitous  to  minister  and  do  our 
share  than  to  be  served  sufficiently  ourselves. 


90       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

"  But  it  shall  not  be  so  among  you  ;  but  who- 
ever will  be  great  among  you,  let  him  be  your 
minister  :  And  whosoever  will  be  chief  among 
you,  let  him  be  your  servant:  Even  as  the  Son 
of  Man  came  not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to 
minister." 


VI 

THE  LIFE  MORE  THAN  MEAT 

AS  the  Apostle  Paul  ascended  the  slopes  of 
Mars  Hill,  in  the  Grecian  City,  to  speak 
to  the  unheeding  ears  of  its  wise  men, 
he  beheld  the  altar  to  "  the  unknown  God."     In 
his  classic  address,  he  told  the  Athenians  that, 
though  they  knew  it  not,  they  were  all  seeking 
this  unknown   God,    and   in   the  course   of  his 
utterance  he  gave  voice  to  these  majestic  words, 
"  For  in  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being." 

In  all  the  great  human  movements  of  our  day, 
men  are  seeking  this  unknown  God.  These 
words  from  the  lips  of  the  Apostle  Paul  are 
representative  of  the  greatness  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures.  The  Bible,  above  all  books,  is  char- 
acterized by  the  profoundness  of  its  thought  and 
the  appropriate  majesty  of  its  expression.  It  is 
never  trivial  and  superficial.  Its  words  reach 
down  into  the  depths.  Its  inspired  writers  often 
gather  up  a  universal  thought  into  one  sentence 
of  speech.  Take  for  example  the  sense  of  the 
divine  immanence  that  pervades  the  Psalms.  In 
its  deepest  utterances  it  always  relates  together 

91 


92       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

the  divine  and  the  human ;  God  and  man  are 
brought  into  their  oneness. 

The  transcendence  of  God  in  the  Scriptures  is 
not  that  of  the  so-called  absentee  God  of  a  later 
theology.  It  is  the  transcendence  of  character. 
With  it  there  is  always  the  immanence  of  sym- 
pathy0  The  idea  of  God  throughout  the  Bible 
might  be  expressed  in  these  words  of  the 
apostle  :  "  In  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being." 

We  talk  to-day  a  great  deal  about  what  we 
call  "  other  worldliness/'  as  contrasted  with  a 
more  particular  "  this  worldliness."  If  by  the 
sense  of  other  worldliness  we  mean  the  isolation 
of  the  religious  spirit  from  the  life  of  mankind, 
then  such  other  worldliness  is  harmful.  If,  how- 
ever, we  mean  by  it  the  sense  of  the  Infinite  in 
humanity,  then  it  is  the  last  of  our  senses  which 
we  should  lose  or  impair. 

All  life,  in  its  expression,  is  more  or  less  ma- 
terial and  physical  and  we  should  have  no  pa- 
tience whatever  with  that  sort  of  spiritual  benev- 
olence which,  in  place  of  the  bread  for  the 
body,  gives  a  tract  on  the  Bread  of  Life. 

But,  at  heart,  all  human  life  is  spiritual,  and 
while  the  Gospel  must  glorify  the  fruits  of  the 
spirit  it  must  not  forget  the  spirit  itself.  There 
is  a  tendency  to-day  to  obscure  this  truth  and  to 
overmagnify  environment  over  the  inward  life. 

The  kingdom  of  God  will  not  appear  simply 


The  Life  More  Than  Meat  93 

by  doubling  men's  wages  with  no  reference  to 
conscientious  service.  The  kingdom  of  heaven 
will  not  come  through  shorter  hours  of  labour, 
without  regard  to  the  moral  uses  of  leisure. 
Social  regeneration  will  not  be  performed  by 
building  better  houses,  if  there  is  no  concern  for 
better  homes  within  those  houses. 

At  the  same  time,  while  the  life  is  more  than 
meat,  we  must  also  remember  that  the  meat  is 
necessary  to  the  life.  Our  social  reformers  are 
right  in  reaching  up  towards  the  heavenly 
through  the  earthly.  While,  with  the  one  hand, 
we  seek  to  transform  the  hearts  and  characters 
of  men,  we  must,  with  the  other,  seek  to  gain  for 
them  human  justice. 

But  it  is  true  that  sometimes  a  larger  moral 
existence  and  a  deeper  spiritual  sense  would 
mean  less  necessity  for  philanthropy,  and  all 
economic  reformations  must  have  their  roots  in 
moral,  spiritual  impulse. 

Our  modern  danger  is  that  of  divorcing  social 
betterment  from  spiritual  life,  while  the  one  ought 
to  be  the  expression  of  the  other.  No  social  pro- 
gram will  ultimately  avail  that  is  not  expressed 
in  terms  of  the  spirit.  The  inward  and  the  out- 
ward life  must  reflect  each  other.  Our  modern 
social  movements  will  be  good  and  abiding  only 
as  they  are  the  revelation  of  the  divine  mind,  as 
"  In  Him  they  live  and  move  and  have  their 
being." 


94       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

The  weakness  of  our  social  reformers  is  that 
of  substituting  the  circumference  for  the  centre, 
of  dealing  in  effects  without  sufficient  thought  of 
ultimate  causes.  In  their  passionate  interest  for 
man  they  forget  the  God  in  whom  man  lives  and 
moves.  This  does  not  mean  that  we  are  to  ac- 
cept the  alternative  of  Professor  Forsyth,  in  his 
recent  book  on  "  The  Person  and  Place  of  Jesus 
Christ,"  that  the  great  religious  issue  of  the  hour 
is  "  the  God  that  serves  humanity  or  the  human- 
ity that  serves  God."  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  are  not  to  serve  man  in  place  of  God.  We 
are  to  follow  the  word  of  Jesus  and  serve  God 
through  the  service  of  man,  with  a  thoughtful 
comprehension  of  the  relation  between  the  Infi- 
nite and  the  finite. 

Of  our  social  order,  if  it  is  to  be  abiding,  of 
our  democracy,  if  it  is  to  endure,  we  must  learn 
to  say,  in  Him  it  must  live  and  move  and  have 
its  being.  So  while  religion  without  humanity 
is  sad,  it  is  equally  sad  to  have  a  humanity  with- 
out religion.  Such  a  humanity  is  transitory  and 
specious. 

Our  real  social  leaders  to-day  are  not  those 
men  and  women  who,  in  their  blind  zeal,  would 
substitute  humanity  for  religion,  who  would  dis- 
place the  Christian  religion  by  the  club  and 
social  settlement,  who  would  neglect  spiritual 
truth  in  the  supposed  interest  of  human  comfort. 
Our  real  leaders  are  those  men  who  have  a  pro- 


The  Life  More  Than  Meat  95 

found  faith  in  a  God  who  loves  men,  and  whose 
love  of  mankind  is  an  expression  of  their  faith  in 
the  Eternal. 

Yet  our  social  reformers  are  right  in  reaching 
up  to  the  heavenly  through  the  earthly.     In  our  ../ 
training  of  the  child  we  must  first  give  him  care  c 
and  comfort,  in  order  that  we  may  bestow  upon 
him  truth  and  character. 

Here  then  is  the  social  gospel  for  to-day.  We 
find  its  analogy  in  the  natural  order,  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  race.  The  difference  between 
the  savage  and  the  civilized  man  is  not  a  differ- 
ence in  physical  comfort ;  it  is  that  the  later  devel- 
oped man  has  learned  that  his  life,  his  movements, 
his  being  are  in  the  life  of  the  Infinite. 

To  take  another  analogy,  our  national  and 
social  life  are  under  necessary  laws.  By 
them  the  home  is  protected,  human  life  is  kept 
sacred,  justice  is  maintained.  As  we  learn  these 
laws  we  find  the  eternal  principles  beneath 
them.  As  in  these  laws  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being,  life  becomes  harmonious 
and  safe. 

Or  again,  in  our  human  society  we  get  the 
most  out  of  it  by  living  in  it,  conforming  to  its 
institutions  of  the  home  and  the  school  and  the 
Church. 

Thus  life  rises  only  as  it  finds  its  place  in  the 
highest  in  the  universe.  And,  at  best,  these  are 
only  analogies.  Ultimately  man  lives  higher 


96       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

than  nature.  At  his  highest  he  rises  above  the 
social  level  of  his  social  order. 

Ultimately  the  world  is  not  governed  by  nature, 
by  law  or  by  man.  Our  highest  life  is  in  the 
realm  of  truth  and  eternal  principle.  Nature 
has  no  meaning  unless  it  is  the  expression  of  the 
Infinite  thought,  law  has  no  sanction  without  the 
will  of  the  Lawgiver,  man  is  unaccountable  ex- 
cept as  the  human  child  of  the  divine  Father. 

But  what  do  we  mean  by  living,  moving  and 
having  our  being  in  God  ?  Not  simply  standing 
in  awe  of  Him,  not  by  the  sense  of  fear,  not  by  what 
we  call  faith  in  God,  not  even  our  love  for  Him 
as  of  a  pure  and  holy  being.  It  is  the  sharing 
of  the  divine  heart  and  mind,  coming  to  love  the 
things  He  loves,  yea,  to  hate  the  things  He  hates. 
It  is  thinking  as  God  thinks  ;  it  is  not  seeking 
His  favour,  but  seeking  God  Himself.  This  is 
the  heart  of  religion,  this  is  the  soul  of  moral 
action.  We  have  been  afraid  of  the  depths  in 
religion,  we  have  moved  upon  the  surface  of  its 
waters,  we  have  called  religion  by  many  other 
names.  We  have  called  it  faith,  belief,  creed, 
action,  deeds.  By  so  limiting  it  we  have  been 
afraid  to.  think  of  it  as  our  life  and  being  in  the 
Infinite.  This  superficialism  has  gone  in  two 
directions,  in  the  direction  of  form  and  ceremony 
on  the  one  hand,  and  in  that  of  outward  act  and 
deed  on  the  other. 

Religion  is  not  what  we  think  about  God.     It 


The  Life  More  Than  Meat  97 

is  thinking  and  loving  God's  thoughts.  In  its 
social  application  it  means  loving  men  as  their 
heavenly  Father  loves  them,  their  bodies  and 
their  souls,  their  physical  comfort  and  their  char- 
acters. It  is  a  great  deal  to  gain  for  men  better 
houses,  food,  wages  and  more  leisure.  It  is  infi- 
nitely more  to  give  them  also  better  hearts  and 
characters. 

Jesus  is  the  sovereign  example  of  a  well-bal- 
anced mind  and  heart.  He  fed,  He  healed,  He 
comforted  men,  He  rebuked  the  rich  with  great 
severity,  but  He  was  always  saying  that  the  life 
was  more  than  the  meat.  He  was  always  lead- 
ing men  towards  the  fulfillment  of  their  life  in 
God.  His  whole  life  is  a  picture  of  the  blending 
of  religious  faith  with  human  sympathy,  two 
elements  which  in  Him  God  hath  joined  to- 
gether and  which  by  man  should  not  be  rent 
asunder. 

This  view  of  the  social  order  transfuses  philan- 
thropy with  a  holy  light.  It  irradiates  action 
with  the  light  of  motive.  We  see  humanity  as  a 
child  of  the  divine,  we  learn  that  we  can  only  rid 
men  of  poverty  as  we  rid  either  them  or  their 
fellow  men  of  sin.  It  becomes  clear  that  we  can 
best  reduce  the  former  by  uprooting  the  latter. 

The  question  is  raised  to-day  as  to  what  is  the 
distinct  message  and  aim  of  the  Church.  Some 
men  are  saying,  either  outwardly  or  more  timidly 
to  themselves,  that  with  our  great  humanitarian 


98       Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

institutions  there  is  little  need  of  the  Church. 
They  forget  that  these  grew  out  of  the  Church's 
gospel  and,  with  their  limited  vision,  they  do  not 
see  that  they  can  never  endure  without  it. 

Take  the  gifts  which  come  for  our  great  phil- 
anthropies. Who  are  the  givers  ?  They  are  al- 
most always  men  whose  hearts  are  touched  by 
the  Gospel  and  who  seek  to  live  a  religious  life. 
The  Church  is  to  do  what  Jesus  did,  find  ways  of 
expressing  the  divine  in  human  terms  and  of  re- 
vealing humanity  in  the  light  of  its  divine  mean- 
ing. 

Christian  disciples  must  do  their  deeds  of  kind- 
ness and  let  them  interpret  and  express  their 
religion.  They  must  also  seek  to  interpret  the 
life  itself  and  find  beneath  in  its  eternal,  guiding 
principle. 

There  are  some  men  to-day  who  really  believe 
that  we  can  make  the  world  both  happy  and 
good  without  God.  But  this  is  not  true,  if  our 
ideal  of  a  good  world  is  a  lofty  ideal.  The 
prophet,  the  teacher,  the  reformer,  is  hopeless 
unless  he  can  see  beyond  the  forces  which  he 
may  witness  in  the  life  of  the  world  itself.  He 
needs  ever  to  be  lifting  his  eyes  to  the  eternal 
hills  and  to  feel  the  gracious  presence  of  God 
mediating  itself  in  human  life. 

Thus  all  life,  all  goodness,  all  permanent  uplift- 
ing of  mankind  must  be  the  unreturning,  endless, 
God  ward  reach  of  the  souls  of  men  of  faith.  The 


The  Life  More  Than  Meat  99 

creature  cannot  do  the  task  of  the  Creator,  but  if 
he  believes  this  truth  of  the  great  apostle,  then 
he  knows  that  no  falsehood  can  defeat,  that  no 
right  can  be  crushed  and  he  can  work  with  faith 
and  hope  and  joy. 

Our  social  movements,  our  philanthropic  en- 
terprises, our  economic  betterments  and  other  in- 
stitutions, instead  of  taking  the  place  of  Gospel, 
pulpit,  truth  and  religion,  can  never  endure,  can 
never  be  more  than  the  outward  passing  semblance 
of  a  kingdom  of  heaven,  without  some  institu- 
tion, some  spiritual  school  which  is  ever  teaching 
men  that  salvation  does  not  rest  in  political  econ- 
omy or  in  social  enterprise.  Above  all  these 
mansions  of  the  earth  there  is  a  house  not  made 
with  hands.  In  God  all  men  and  all  their  works 
and  movements  must  live  and  move  and  have 
their  being. 

The  thoughtful  men  and  women  among  us 
seek  the  light  in  this  direction.  The  world  that 
they  face  is  complex  and  difficult,  its  political, 
social  and  economic  problems  are  very  hard  to 
solve.  To  such  men  only,  and  only  to  their  vi- 
sion, will  the  light  of  the  Eternal  bring  much  joy 
to  the  temporal. 

Such  men  and  women  must  be  those  of  our 
churches,  patient,  thoughtful,  passionate,  wise 
and  spiritual ;  those  who  pray,  as  did  one  of  the 
great  psalmists,  "  For  with  Thee,  O  God,  is  the 
fountain  of  life  and  in  Thy  light  do  we  see  light." 


loo     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

Rolling  back  the  problems,  the  tasks  of  the  world 
upon  God,  believing  in  truth,  love  and  justice, 
ever  saying  of  all  humanity,  "  We  are  His  off- 
spring, for  in  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being." 


VII 

THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  UNSEEN 

THE  deepest  of  truths  often  appear  in  the 
form  of  paradox.  The  Scriptures  speak 
frequently  of  the  invisibility  of  the  Infi- 
nite and  yet  Jesus  once  declared  that  the  poor  in 
heart  were  blessed  because  they  see  God. 

The  most  striking  utterance  of  this  nature  was 
that  of  the  apostle  in  his  letter  to  the  Church  at 
Corinth :  "  While  we  look  not  at  the  things 
which  are  seen,  but  at  the  things  which  are  un- 
seen ;  for  the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal, 
but  the  things  which  are  unseen  are  eternal." 
This  paradox  obtains  in  all  human  life.  Every- 
where are  its  visible  foregrounds  and  its  invisible 
backgrounds.  It  is  true  that  only  as  we  see  and 
understand  the  unseen  can  we  come  to  know 
life  at  all. 

When  I  looked  upon  Munkacsy's  great  picture, 
called  Christ  before  Pilate,  and  caught  the  first 
impression,  the  subject  seemed  to  be  correctly 
stated.  It  was  Christ  before  Pilate.  But  as  I 
entered  into  the  thought  of  the  scene  and  re- 
membered all  its  associations,  and  as  I  studied 
the  countenances  of  the  two  striking  personali- 

101 


1O2     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

ties  of  the  picture,  I  caught  the  spirit  of  Pilate  in 
>  the  anxious,  troubled  look  upon  his  face  and  I 
remembered  that  the  troublous  dreams  that 
night  were  in  Pilate's  household.  Then  I  looked 
/at  the  face  of  the  Master,  clear,  calm  and  undis- 
turbed, as  He  said :  "  Thou  couldst  have  no 
power  over  Me  except  it  were  given  thee  from 
above."  It  then  seemed  to  me  that  there  was 
something  wrong  about  the  picture  and  I  dis- 
covered that  it  was  misnamed.  It  was  really 
<c^filate  before  Christ.  Upon  my  first  view  I  had 
looked  at  the  things  which  are  seen,  but  my 
second  and  truer  vision  was  of  the  things  which 
are  unseen. 

So  it  is  in  all  life.  There  are  certain  things 
which  make  their  immediate  impression  upon 
us,  the  details  of  our  living,  our  momentary  in- 
terests, our  temporary  judgments,  the  things 
which  are  seen.  But  back  and  beyond  these  are 
the  great  truths  which  we  have  come  to  know, 
the  splendid  endeavours  to  which  we  have 
pledged  ourselves,  the  ultimate  aims  of  our  lives, 
our  hopes,  our  deeper  impulses,  our  abiding  in- 
spirations ;  these  remain  very  much  in  the  realm 
of  the  unseen.  Yet  these  are  the  real  sources  of 
our  life  and  power. 

We  need  to  witness  both  the  seen  and  the  un- 
seen. We  must  not  be  mere  distant  dreamers 
on  the  one  hand,  or  mere  thoughtless  actors  on 
the  other.  But  our  greatest  danger  is  that  we 


The  Witness  of  the  Unseen  103 

shall  not  see  into  the  background  of  the  picture 
and  discover  the  meaning  of  life.  The  need  of 
most  of  us  is  of  more  distance  and  depth.  We 
use  the  word  "  reality  "  as  though  it  related  only 
to  those  things  which  are  seen  and  may  be 
handled,  while  the  truth  is  that  the  profound 
and  ultimate  realities  are  not  the  things  seen 
and  temporal  but  the  unseen  and  eternal. 

In  considering  these  unseen  backgrounds  of 
life  two  elements  seem  to  cover  them.  First, 
there  is  the  spirit  which  animates  and  then 
there  is  the  ideal  towards  which  we  are  ap- 
proaching. 

In  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews  the  writer  tells 
us  that  Moses  wrote  as  seeing  the  invisible.  So 
it  is  with  us.  We  live  our  truest  life,  we  are 
our  highest  selves,  we  do  our  finest  deeds, 
under  the  light  and  impulse  of  our  vision  of  the 
unseen.  The  true  measure  of  our  life  lies  in  our 
apprehension  of  its  background.  Our  true  un- 
derstanding of  our  own  souls  is  reached  when 
we  go  back  of  effects  to  causes,  behind  events  to 
their  meanings,  beyond  incidents  to  principles, 
from  facts  to  truths. 

When  we  come  to  look  at  the  deepest  things 
they  are  all  invisible.  There  is  the  energy  that 
creates  and  sustains  the  universal  order.  There 
are  our  human  personalities,  our  minds,  our 
souls,  our  affections,  all  that  is  most  real  is  the 
unseen.  Our  human  life  almost  reaches  a  mis- 


1 04     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

arable  drudgery  unless  we  witness  its  divine, 
eternal  meaning. 

Our  duties,  our  deeds  of  service,  our  patient 
toil,  our  cares,  these  are  the  foregrounds  of  life, 
the  things  that  are  seen.  They  wait  to  be  illu- 
mined by  the  sunlight  upon  the  mountains  of 
the  unseen  background  of  inspiration  and  abid- 
ing impulse. 

Take  motherhood  for  an  example.  It  is  little 
but  care,  trouble  and  even  menial  service,  it  is 
full  of  little  but  haunting  dread  even  from  its 
first  intimations,  unless  over  the  mother  is  the 
angel  of  annunciation  and  unless  the  mother  be- 
comes thus  a  holy  mother. 

Everywhere  we  see  the  truth  of  this  paradox. 
With  only  the  sight  of  the  visible,  life  is  dark. 
The  light  of  life  comes  from  the  unseen.  But 
when  life  is  looked  at  in  this  way  it  becomes  so 
radiant  with  its  invisible,  inherent  beauty,  that 
"  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give  thoughts 
that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 

Thus  the  true  measure  of  ourselves,  of  our 
fellow  men,  and  of  the  great  causes  and  move- 
ments of  our  humanity,  are  gained  as  we  are 
able  to  look  away  from  the  foreground  into  the 
realm  of  the  unseen.  We  must  discover  the 
spirit  which  animates  and  the  ideal  which 
directs,  and  draws  and  lures  us  onward. 

By  this  measure  must  we  judge  ourselves,  ac- 
cording to  the  utterance  of  Jesus,  remembering 


The  Witness  of  the  Unseen  105 

that  God  knoweth  our  hearts.  Our  life  is  in- 
finitely more  than  the  outward  actions  which  ap- 
pear in  its  foreground ;  it  is  in  the  intent,  the  mo- 
tive, the  spirit.  It  does  not  exist  in  the  activity 
of  the  immediate  moment,  but  in  the  guiding 
star  in  the  East  of  some  ideal  which  we  are  fol- 
lowing, in  the  background  of  our  living. 

Are  my  thoughts  pure,  are  my  motives  unself- 
ish, is  my  purpose  lofty,  yea,  if  I  am  heaping 
coals  of  fire  on  my  brother's  head  am  I  doing  it 
only  for  the  sake  of  scorching  him,  in  rendering 
my  benevolence  am  I  doing  it  because  of  its 
comfortable  feeling  ?  This  should  be  the  search- 
ing method  of  our  introspective  judgment. 

This  searching  method,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
also  full  of  encouragement  and  uplift  as  we  let 
the  lights  pass  over  from  humility  and  confession 
to  prophecy  and  aspiration.  Perhaps  we  have 
been  misjudged  by  our  fellow  men.  We  are 
conscious  of  lofty  intent  and  of  unselfish  spirit. 
Then  the  apparent  foreground  of  our  failure 
recedes  into  the  unseen  background  of  success. 

Character,  some  one  has  said,  is  the  sum  of  all 
our  choices.  But  it  is  just  as  true,  yes,  truer,  that 
our  choices  are  the  issue  of  character.  We  need 
to  be  ever  getting  behind  the  foreground  of  ac- 
tion into  this  background  of  character.  Our 
outwardly  noble  actions  are  not  noble  unless 
they  express  a  great  and  good  nature.  The 
smiles  of  our  lips  are  as  bad  as  lies  unless  they 


106     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

express  the  kindness  of  our  hearts ;  our  utter- 
ances, indignant  though  they  may  be,  against 
unrighteousness,  are  themselves  unrighteous  un- 
less they  proceed  from  hearts  that  are  on  fire. 
The  gifts  of  our  apparent  kindness  bring  us  no 
return  unless  they  come  from  generous,  unselfish 
spirits. 

Sincerity  then  is  the  harmony  between  the 
seen  and  the  unseen.  It  is  bad  enough  if  the 
things  we  do  are  wrong,  but  it  is  worse  if  the 
background  of  their  spirit  is  not  right.  "  If  the 
light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how  great  is 
that  darkness  ?  " 

In  the  same  way  that  we  thus  judge  ourselves, 
so  we  must  measure  our  fellow  men.  We  need 
to  remember  that  we  only  see  this  foreground  of 
men's  lives.  Some  of  the  greatest  tragedies  in 
the  world  are  the  tragedies  of  misunderstanding. 
We  see  men  perhaps  only  as  weak,  blundering, 
failing  men.  Perhaps,  however,  they  are  like  the 
man  in  the  forest  trying  to  find  his  way,  going  in 
many  circles,  falling  many  times,  yet  in  his  un- 
seen heart  is  the  light  of  the  home  that  he  is 
seeking,  the  light  which  he  has  lost  for  a  little 
time. 

We  all  need  to  remember  that  "there  is  so 
much  bad  in  the  best  of  us  and  so  much  good  in 
the  worst  of  us,"  that  while  it  is  right  to  rebuke 
evil,  we  should  never  do  it  without  seeking  to 
transform  it  into  good.  We  need  to  learn  to  get 


The  Witness  of  the  Unseen  107 

back  of  the  seen  to  the  unseen  in  our  judgment 
of  men. 

The  saddest  of  our  human  failures  to-day  is 
our  estimate  of  modern  causes  and  movements. 
We  hear  a  great  babel  of  voices,  but  they  are 
like  the  tongues  at  Pentecost ;  each  man  speaks 
his  own  dialect,  no  one  of  them  utters  the  whole 
gospel,  yet  they  are  all  seeking  to  express  one 
and  the  same  ideal. 

This  is  especially  true  in  the  growing  relations 
of  this  democracy  of  ours.  We  must  keep  in 
mind  two  elements.  First,  the  ultimate  purpose, 
intent  and  ideal.  We  must  keep  this  clear  of  the 
immediate  means  and  methods  by  which  men  so 
blunderingly  seek  the  attainment  of  those  ideals. 

There  is  the  great  mob  of  people  before  the 
palace  of  the  Czar  of  all  the  Russians.  To  the 
ordinary  onlooker  it  is  simply  a  mob  to  be  sub- 
dued. So  thinks  that  blind  ruler.  But  he  who 
is  gifted  with  the  eye  and  sense  of  prophecy  can 
look  into  the  background  and  witness  the  pent- 
up  indignation  of  a  wronged  and  oppressed 
people. 

This  is  the  way  in  which  we  must  look  at  all 
our  social  movements.  It  is  the  duty  of  those, 
who  are  called  to  guide  them,  first  to  understand 
their  spirit,  and  then  to  guide  them  towards  their 
higher  ideals.  Most  men  and  women,  as  they 
look  upon  human  society,  see  only  the  man  with 
the  muck-rake.  If  they  would  look  beyond  into 


lo8     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

the  unseen  they  would  witness  a  crown  sus- 
pended over  his  head. 

I  stood  one  afternoon  in  one  of  London's  busy 
thoroughfares.  The  sound  of  distant  and  ap- 
proaching fife  and  drum  fell  upon  my  ears  The 
passers-by  ceased  for  a  moment  in  their  hur- 
ried pace,  and  we  saw,  marching  up  the  broad 
and  busy  street,  with  their  Scriptural  banners, 
the  blue-bonneted  women  and  the  uniformed 
men  of  the  Salvation  Army.  A  ludicrous  and 
ridiculous  scene!  So  thought  those  men  and 
women  who  stood  about  me.  They  saw  in  that 
procession  only  an  insignificant  body  of  uncul- 
tured and  uncouth  men  and  women.  They 
have  nothing  to  bestow  upon  them  but  a  pat- 
ronizing, condescending  smile,  either  of  pity  or 
disdain. 

But  I  thank  God  I  had  at  least  enough  of  the 
gift  of  prophecy  and  true  perspective  to  behold 
that  scene  with  other  and  with  very  different  eyes. 
I  saw  their  place  in  a  magnificent  procession  two 
thousand  years  in  length,  in  the  grand  army  of 
the  saints,  the  martyrs,  the  spiritual  warriors,  and 
the  holy  men  of  God,  a  legion  that  enrolls  the 
highest  names  of  history.  I  saw  the  transformed 
Augustine,  the  golden-tongued  Chrysostom,  the 
heroic  Savonarola,  the  self-sacrificing  Francis  of 
Assisi,  the  good  and  brave  John  Bunyan,  stern, 
strong  Oliver  Cromwell,  Baxter  of  Kidderminster, 
Thomas  Chalmers,  Frederick  Maurice,  Frederick 


The  Witness  of  the  Unseen  109 

W.  Robertson,  and  a  myriad  of  other  great  and 
holy  men.  My  mind  carried  me  on  up  to  the  lead- 
ers of  that  magnificent  march,  and  I  beheld  the 
impulsive  Peter,  the  loving  John,  Paul  of  Tarsus, 
and  their  simple,  stately  colleagues.  And  finally, 
at  the  head  of  the  host  no  man  can  number,  was 
the  supreme  personage  of  history  and  more,  the 
Son  of  God,  in  His  transfiguration  glory,  with 
garments  as  the  light,  shining  with  the  glory  as  of 
the  only-begotten  of  the  Father,  full  of  grace  and 
truth. 

Again  I  retraced  that  long  line.  I  looked  once 
more  at  that  band  of  resolute  men  and  good 
women  marching  up  Regent  Street  amid  the 
smiles  of  those  affably  scornful  men  and  women. 
I  saw  in  them  lives  that  had  been  transformed 
by  Jesus  Christ,  spending  themselves  to  uplift 
men  ;  women,  daughters  of  the  people  and  daugh- 
ters of  God,  who  go  about  the  haunts  of  that  great 
city,  by  day  and  by  night,  serving  and  uplifting 
their  fallen  and  their  falling  sisters.  The  grotesque 
was  all  obliterated.  Beheld  in  the  light  of  its 
real  significance  the  scene  was  a  sublime  one, 
beautiful  and  full  of  dignity.  They  were  men 
and  women  seeking  with  Jesus  Christ  to  help  and 
save  their  very  scorners.  I  recognized  their 
place  in  a  great  historic  pageant.  It  gave  an- 
other picture  to  me  than  to  the  shopping  women 
and  busy  men  of  Oxford  Street.  I  witnessed 
their  true  dignity  as  disciples  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth. 


1 10     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

There  they  are,  they  do  their  work,  mighty, 
magnificent,  heroic,  full  of  a  pathetic  goodness. 
The  great  world  of  London  knows  them  not, 
though  they  be  its  saviours,  or  knows  them  only 
by  a  mocking  nod,  a  pitying  or  disdainful  glance. 
Thus  we  have  witness  of  the  supreme  necessity 
of  a  correct  perspective. 

When  they  had  passed  on,  and  the  people  by 
me  had  forgotten  that  they  were,  I  thought  still 
longer  upon  the  inner  meaning  of  the  episode. 
The  things  that  were  interpret  those  that  are. 
History  is  repetition,  and  the  meaning  of  the 
present  is  best  seen  in  the  outcome  of  past  move- 
ments. The  pages  of  history  unrolled  them- 
selves. Back  three  hundred  years,  another  band 
of  very  simple  men,  unknown  at  first  to  the  world 
in  which  they  lived.  When  known,  known  only 
to  deride  and  persecute.  Driven  to  Holland, 
ostracized  by  English  civilization,  forced  to  brave 
the  billows  of  the  angry  ocean  in  a  frail  craft. 
Unknown,  unheeded,  or  malignantly  pursued  in 
that  day.  Forgotten  in  this  day  by  the  mass  of 
men,  excepting  a  few  students  of  historic  annals. 
I  beheld  them  in  their  true  dignity  and  greatness, 
bequeathing  the  only  conscience  England  has, 
and  giving  to  the  world — America. 

A  few  more  pages  back,  another  host,  hiding 
in  Roman  caves  and  catacombs.  Scorned  while 
few,  persecuted  when  many,  growing  like  the 
mustard  seed  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  until 


The  Witness  of  the  Unseen  1 1 1 

the  Roman  world  was  theirs,  though  they  were 
dead  of  hunger,  torture  and  neglect. 

Pursuing  the  path  of  this  world's  chronicles 
still  farther  I  saw  a  little  handful  of  fishermen  and 
publicans,  unregarded  and  unknown  by  their 
state,  except  by  a  few  petty  magistrates  and 
policemen.  So  insignificant  that  only  one  con- 
temporary historian  gives  them  note,  and  he  but 
one  short  line.  But  their  message  has  trans- 
formed the  world.  These  are  but  instances  out 
of  the  multitude  of  their  kind.  I  was  back  again 
to  the  beginning  of  the  great  procession,  to  the 
starting-point  and  personage  of  this  score  of 
centuries.  Out  there  in  a  desert,  alone  on  a 
mountainside,  without  a  place  to  lay  His  head, 
praying  in  the  solitude  of  the  garden,  sought 
only  seldom  by  a  throng,  which  waited  only  for 
a  moment  and  then  went  away  to  return  no  more 
until  it  came  to  cry  that  He  be  crucified,  speaking 
mostly  to  that  dozen  fishermen  and  publicans, 
moves  the  majestic  form  of  the  Son  of  God, 
dropping  from  His  lips  eternal  truths,  that  have 
made  subsequent  moral  history,  living  a  life  that 
by  its  holy  grandeur  has  transformed  humanity. 
While  yonder  is  Herod,  busy  with  his  dances  and 
his  card  parties,  Caesar  with  his  plots  and  plans, 
Pilate  with  his  petty  intrigues,  the  busy  men  of 
Jerusalem,  too  hurried  like  the  strenuous  business 
men  and  the  feverous,  frivolous  women  of  to-day, 
too  preoccupied  to  give  Him  heed,  except  as  a 


112     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

mild  and  harmless  fanatic  whom  they  never 
would  have  disturbed  but  for  a  few  blind,  hot- 
headed Jews.  These  are  but  epitomes  of  history. 
It  has  ever  thus  gone  on  ;  it  goes  on  to-day,  re- 
peating its  blind  and  stupid  errors. 

On  every  hand  to-day,  in  the  movements  of 
the  social  order,  we  may  witness  many  wrong 
means  and  methods  in  the  foreground,  but  we 
should  also  try  to  see  into  the  background  of  the 
spirit  behind  them,  of  the  splendid  ideals  of 
justice  and  righteousness  waiting  to  be  inter- 
preted and  properly  expressed.  Most  men  and 
women  look  simply  at  the  foreground,  condemn- 
ing the  immediate  cause,  while  the  greater  task 
is  to  recognize  and  bring  out  the  true  spirit  and 
ideal. 

This  is  the  way  in  which  we  must  interpret 
humanity  and  take  the  measure  of  all  human  life. 
This  is  our  true  place  in  the  universe,  to  work 
with  God,  turning  hatred  into  love,  turning  false- 
hood into  truth. 

"  The  spirit  of  man  is  the  candle  of  the  Lord." 
All  men  and  all  human  movements  are  the 
garments  of  the  divine  Spirit.  They  all  make 
many  errors  and  yet  all  uprisings  are  upliftings. 
So  while  we  condemn,  if  we  must,  the  foreground 
of  men's  failing  means  and  methods,  let  us  also 
exalt  and  bring  out  the  background  of  the  spirit 
and  ideal. 

Mankind  is  not,  on  the  whole,  a  child  of  the 


The  Witness  of  the  Unseen  113 

evil  one  whom  God  is  trying  to  steal.  Mankind 
are  the  children  of  God  upon  whom  Satan  has 
laid  his  hand,  as  he  sought  to  do  with  Jesus,  "  for 
a  season." 

There  are  many  lessons  to  learn  from  this 
thought.  We  should  cultivate  the  duty  of  look- 
ing for  the  best.  We  must  look  for  the  best  in 
ourselves,  in  our  better  prophecies  and  our  higher 
impulses.  We  must  ever  be  seeking  the  best  in 
others  and  idealize  for  them  if  they  will  not 
idealize  for  themselves.  As  Frederick  W. 
Robertson  put  it,  we  must  learn  to  find  "the 
soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil."  Thus  only  shall 
we  be  able  to  draw  out  the  best  in  ourselves  and 
in  other  men  ;  thus  only  shall  we  be  able  to  guide 
the  movements  of  mankind  towards  their  ultimate 
ideal. 

We  should  nurture  the  finest  in  our  humanity 
and  never  break  the  bruised  reed  or  quench  the 
smoking  flax.  Here  is  the  secret  of  a  true 
optimism.  It  is  not  blind,  it  only  seems  blind 
because  it  sees  more.  It  witnesses  not  only  the 
foreground  of  the  seen  but  the  background  of 
the  unseen. 

The  world  is  growing  better,  as  we  look  from 
the  foreground  of  the  present  into  tlje  background 
of  space  and  time,  from  the  foreground  of  the 
immediate  and  direct  into  the  background  of  the 
general  and  universal,  out  of  the  past  and  the 
present  into  the  background  of  the  ages.  Thus 


114     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

it  is  that  we  may  witness  the  hope  of  the  future. 
We  must  look  out  upon  the  landscape  and  not  at 
the  few  broken  trees  at  our  feet. 

All  human  life  is  full  of  beauty,  if  we  only 
cultivate  this  art  of  seeing  it,  and  our  experience 
will  be  that  of  Jacob  ;  we  shall  say  again  and 
again,  "Surely  the  Lord  is  in  this  place  but  I 
knew  it  not."  And  even  if  we  do  not  find  all  life 
a  holy  place,  we  shall  find,  at  least,  many  Alpine 
shrines  along  the  way.  In  the  Father's  house 
on  earth  there  are  thus  many  mansions. 

The  world  is  very  like  a  great  cathedral  with 
its  many  chapels,  if  we  but  discover  them.  Only 
by  thus  seeing  life  shall  we  come  to  make  it  so. 
This  great  optimism  of  faith  must  have  three  ul- 
timate objects, — self,  humanity  and  God. 

We  must  believe  in  God,  that  we  live  in  a 
divine  order  even  though  He  moves  in  a  mys- 
terious way. 

Our  faith  in  self,  while  not  vain  and  presump- 
tuous, should  be  real,  knowing  as  we  do  that  we 
have  within  ourselves  the  prophecies  of  ever  bet- 
ter things. 

We  must  believe  in  mankind  because  they  are 
God's  children  waiting  to  be  uplifted.  Thus  only 
is  it  good  to  live,  to  love,  to  hope,  to  work,  to 
sacrifice  and  to  wait. 

The  shepherds  in  the  fields  heard  the  song  of 
the  host  in  the  Syrian  sky,  but  the  busy  men  and 
women  in  the  inn  did  not  hear  it.  Thus  may 


The  Witness  of  the  Unseen  1 1 5 

God  and  man  work  together  as  truth  springs  up 
out  of  the  earth  and  righteousness  looks  down 
from  heaven. 

I  love  to  look  at  that  statue  of  John  Bunyan  in 
the  park  at  Bedford  with  its  inscription,  "  His    Ix 
eyes  uplift  to  heaven,  he  stood  as  one  who  pleaded 
with  men." 

To  bring  God  down  to  man,  to  lift  man  up  to 
God,  this  is  the  work  of  our  Christian  service. 
We  may  even  learn  to  love  men,  not  only  for 
what  they  are,  but  because  of  our  faith  in  what 
they  are  to  be.  We  may  look  at  our  humanity 
as  I  look  at  my  boy,  sometimes  in  his  willful 
wrong-doing.  We  may  even  love  them  for  what 
they  might  be.  He  alone  who  thus  lives  as  see- 
ing the  invisible  can  face  the  saddest  of  human 
realities  with  the  undying  faith  and  hope  of  an 
unquenchable  affection. 

We  then,  that  are  strong,  ought  to  bear  the 
infirmities  of  the  weak.  The  mission  of  the 
Christian  Church  is  not  to  separate  the  good 
from  the  bad ;  it  is  to  bring  the  latent  prophecies 
in  mankind  to  their  fulfillment. 

Religion  is  not  only  a  reverence  for  God,  it  is 
reverence  for  His  children,  the  reverence  of  min- 
istry and  service,  the  sense  of  the  sacred  worth 
of  the  human  soul.  It  is  listening  to  the  voice 
of  Jesus,  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  the 
least  of  these  My  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto 
Me."  One  of  the  most  beautiful  scenes  in  the 


The  Culture  of  Self 


VIII 

ACQUIREMENT  BY  RENUNCIATION 

THE  law  of  compensation  is  one  that  is 
not  easy  to  apply  universally  and  yet 
one  which  finds  a  multitude  of  simple 
illustrations  ever  at  hand.  The  profoundest  ap- 
plication of  that  law  is  found  in  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  that  acquirement  comes  through  renuncia- 
tion. "  Whosoever  will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it 
and  whosoever  will  lose  his  life  for  My  sake  shall 
find  it,"  says  the  Master.  He  then  asks  the 
question,  "What  is  a  man  profited  if  he  shall 
gain  the  whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul,  or 
what  shall  a  man  give  in  exchange  for  his  soul  ?  " 
Among  the  most  significant  of  the  operations 
in  the  universal  order  is  that  of  convertibility. 
The  relations  of  the  universe  are  reciprocal. 
There  is  a  divine  law  of  exchange,  in  perpetual 
operation,  by  which  all  giving  is  receiving  and 
all  receiving  is  giving.  There  is  no  acquirement 
without  renunciation,  no  renunciation  without 
acquirement.  Nothing  is  ever  gained  without 
giving  up  something ;  nothing  can  be  relin- 
quished without  gaining  something.  Somewhat 
similar  to  the  natural  law  of  indestructibility,  we 
have,  in  the  moral  order,  this  law  of  compensation. 


122     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

The  sphere  of  human  life  is  one  vast  market- 
place ;  everything  is  under  the  law  of  exchange. 
Everything  has  its  price.  In  it,  there  is  no  re- 
ceiving without  giving,  no  gain  without  loss,  no 
acquirement  without  renunciation.  You  cannot 
get  something  for  nothing.  Whatever  you  get 
you  must  pay  for,  and  every  spiritual  possession 
has  its  value  in  material  terms. 

For  example,  if  you  would  gain  wealth  you 
must  renounce  intellectual  culture.  You  cannot 
be  an  operator  in  Wall  Street  and  be  engaged  in 
intellectual  research  at  the  university.  You  can- 
not obtain  intellectual  culture  without  renounc- 
ing wealth.  If  you  would  have  renown  you 
must  renounce  leisure.  If  you  desire  a  quiet  life 
you  must  give  up  public  honour.  If  you  wish 
physical  vigour  you  must  renounce  indulgence. 
If  you  would  enjoy  physical  gratification  you 
must  give  up  strength  and  health  of  body.  If 
you  would  know  the  meaning  of  the  home  you 
must  give  up  the  life  of  the  club. 

While  it  is  true  that  there  is  mediation  in  all 
this,  it  still  remains  true  that  you  are  always  gain- 
ing the  one  at  so  much  loss  of  the  other.  Noth- 
ing is  ever  gained  without  the  loss  of  something 
else.  We  find  what  seems  to  be  an  eternal  law 
of  inevitable  exchange.  Every  moral  act  is  a 
decision  to  give  up  something  and  to  gain  some- 
thing else. 

The  universe  and  its  human  life  resolve  them- 


Acquirement  by  Renunciation          1 23 

selves  into  two  elements.  We  call  them  matter 
and  spirit.  Life  has  two  forms,  the  material  and 
the  spiritual.  These  moral  transactions  in  the 
market-place  of  life  consist  of  some  exchange  of 
the  one  for  the  other,  of  God  for  mammon  or  of 
mammon  for  God.  We  cannot  serve  both. 

Moral  retrogression  is  the  exchange  of  the 
spiritual  for  the  material.  Moral  evolution  is  the 
exchange  of  the  material  for  the  spiritual.  It 
does  not  change  this  law  if  we  use  other  language 
in  describing  it  and  speak  of  transforming  the 
material  into  the  spiritual  or  of  making  the 
material  a  garment  of  the  spirit.  All  moral  gain 
involves  some  material  loss,  and  on  every  hand, 
as  we  view  the  world,  we  see  men  either  buying 
divine  birthrights  for  messes  of  pottage  or  get- 
ting messes  of  pottage  in  exchange  for  their 
birthrights. 

Every  moral  attainment,  every  spiritual  acquire- 
ment, has  its  market  price  in  material  terms. 
Every  moral  decision  involves  the  saving  of  life 
by  losing  it  or  the  losing  of  life  by  saving  it. 
Every  moral  act  is  the  giving  of  something  in 
exchange  for  the  soul  or  gaining  the  soul  in  ex- 
change for  something  else.  Here  is  money ! 
What  is  its  moral  use  and  value  ?  Does  it  not 
consist  in  its  renouncement?  We  exchange  it 
for  a  book,  some  sublime  sonnet  or  the  utterance 
of  some  great  philosopher.  We  send  it  to  India 
or  to  China  to  be  used  for  the  saving  of  the  race. 


124     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

This  illustrates  the  continuous  moral  exchange 
that  enters  into  every  act  of  moral  progress.  We 
get  money  for  the  sake  of  giving  it  up,  if  we  view 
it  rightly. 

This  truth  of  Jesus  leads  us  into  a  question 
which  often  troubles  us.  Are  material  blessings 
proportional  to  spiritual  merit  ?  Job's  friends 
wrestled  with  the  problem  for  him  and  their  poor 
miserable  philosophy  would  not  adjust  itself  to 
the  facts  of  life.  So  the  Psalms  finally  had  to 
put  the  reward  over  into  the  future. 

Is  there  any  rule  by  which  men  who  serve 
God  are  sure  of  gaining  material  prosperity  ? 
Is  physical  ease  gained  by  spiritual  devotion  ? 
The  facts  betray  no  such  law.  Will  applause 
sound  in  the  ears  of  honour  ?  Can  a  man  make 
the  most  money  by  being  honest  or  by  cheating  ? 
Very  often  by  being  dishonest  ?  Do  good  peo- 
ple suffer  less  than  bad  people  ?  We  certainly 
cannot  see  that  they  do.  In  fact,  the  experience 
of  the  psalmist  seems  universal.  It  is  the 
strength  of  the  wicked  that  seems  firm.  They 
are  not  in  trouble  as  other  men.  Their  eyes 
stand  out  with  success.  Neither  are  they  plagued 
as  other  men.  They  have  more  than  heart  could 
wish. 

Take  the  moral  problems  of  any  community 
and  witness  the  application  of  the  psalmist's 
complaint.  This  at  least  we  can  see,  that  spir- 
itual excellencies  do  not  involve  material  bless- 


Acquirement  by  Renunciation          1125 

ings.  If  there  is  any  rule,  it  is  that  spiritual  at- 
tainment is  always  gained  by  material  loss. 

If  there  are  apparent  objections  to  this  state- 
ment, it  is  because  we  need  to  remember  that  we 
are  speaking  of  those  material  things  which  stand 
in  the  way  of  spiritual  life.  This  Gospel  of  Jesus  is 
not  a  plea  for  voluntary  asceticism.  Jesus  was 
never  disturbed  by  the  sad  doubts  of  the  psalm- 
ist. His  clear  spiritual  eye  saw  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  life  beneath  it  all.  Jesus  called  His 
disciples  and  made  them  many  promises,  but  He 
never  mentioned  ease,  luxury,  or  material  gifts. 
What  was  His  prophecy?  He  said  that  they 
were  to  be  blessed,  but  it  was  when  men  should 
revile  and  persecute  them.  Material  things 
would  be  in  the  way  and  they  might  need  to  cut 
off  the  right  hand  or  pluck  out  the  right  eye. 
They  must  lose  concern  for  earthly  treasures. 
Spiritual  advance  was  by  what  He  called  a  straight 
and  narrow  way.  The  Gospel  was  a  pearl  of  so 
great  price  that  one  must  be  willing  to  give  for 
it  all  that  he  possessed.  He  promised  His  dis- 
ciples a  hundredfold  reward,  but  He  added, 
"with  persecutions."  He  bequeathed  them 
peace,  but  it  was  His  peace,  not  as  the  world. 

His  prophecy  became  realization ;  His  dis- 
ciples found  it  so.  His  disciples  have  ever  found 
it  so.  Read  the  eternal  lessons  of  saintly  biog- 
raphy. You  find  devotion  to  the  truth  paid  for 
by  the  persecution  of  men.  Saints  are  at  the 


126     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

stake,  holy  men  are  hiding  in  caves  or  fastened 
in  the  stocks ;  pilgrims  of  heaven  have  little  but 
their  pilgrim's  staff  and  beggar's  bowl.  They 
gained  their  hundredfold  reward  with  persecu- 
tions. They  took  the  eternal  prize  but  they  all 
paid  the  price. 

The  life  of  Jesus  is  ever  the  illustration  of  His 
truth.  He  made  the  bargain  in  the  wilderness 
of  temptation.  The  twofold  opportunities  were 
set  before  Him.  His  answer  was  that  He  would 
take  the  cross  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Saviours  of  the  world  since  Him  have  been  called 
to  make  the  exchange  of  Calvary,  according  to 
their  measure. 

Men  and  women  complain  that  if  they  work  in 
a  noble  cause  they  only  invite  criticism,  censure, 
opposition,  and  persecution.  It  is  so  within  the 
Church  of  Christ.  They  constantly  tell  us  that 
the  high  callings  are  underpaid.  It  is  true.  A 
bartender  who  can  make  certain  complicated 
combinations  is  paid  much  higher  than  the  best 
of  school-teachers.  Men  are  complaining  that  the 
ministry  is  unremunerative.  There  is  no  doubt 
but  what  it  is  true.  They  say  further  that  the 
nobler  and  braver  the  man  the  more  he  suffers 
and  the  less  he  gets.  In  civic  life  the  dema- 
gogues get  the  praise  and  the  reformers  get 
something  else. 

This  is  all  true.  There  is  no  use  in  evading  it 
but  it  is  simply  a  question : — Which  will  you 


Acquirement  by  Renunciation          127 

have  ;  the  Cross  with  Jesus  Christ  or  a  supper 
with  Pilate?  Shall  it  be  honour  or  money?  It 
is  the  opportunity  of  sharing  the  prison  with  John 
the  Baptist  or  being  with  Herod  at  his  dance.  It 
is  Barabbas  or  Christ,  the  Golden  Rule  or  the 
rule  of  gold.  Every  man  is  called  upon  to  stand 
before  Jesus,  as  did  the  rich  young  man  in  the 
story,  and  many  of  them  go  away  sorrowful. 
The  ultimatum  of  Jesus  was  a  willingness  to  re- 
nounce all. 

We  must,  however,  not  fail  to  see  the  prize  as 
well  as  the  price.  The  disciple  Peter,  who  so 
often  spoke  first  and  thought  afterwards,  once 
impulsively  said  to  the  Master,  "  Lo,  we  have 
left  all  and  followed  Thee."  What  was  the  all  ? 
So  far  as  we  know,  it  was  a  few  old  boats  and 
fish-nets.  What  did  he  gain  ?  The  keys  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  from  the  pierced  hands  of  his 
Lord. 

Judas  made  the  other  decision.  His  gain  was 
thirty  pieces  of  silver  but  what  did  he  give  for 
it? 

The  prize  and  the  price  ;  the  prize  is  honour, 
self-respect,  manhood,  character ;  the  price  any- 
thing that  these  cost.  We  cannot  have  the  prize 
without  the  price  any  more  than  we  can  be,  at 
one  and  the  same  time,  honourable  and  dis- 
honourable, brave  and  craven.  The  prize  is  the 
soul,  the  price  whatever  the  soul  is  worth. 

This  need  be  no  specious  plea  for  the  ad  van- 


1 28     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

tages  of  poverty.  I  love  to  see  business  men  en- 
gaged in  their  honourable  and  profitable  busi- 
ness. I  love  to  see  wage  earners  getting  to- 
gether for  more  pay.  This  truth  of  Jesus  does 
not  set  aside  the  gaining  of  money  by  toil  and 
service.  It  raises  the  question  as  to  what  money 
is  for.  The  meat  is  necessary  to  the  life  but  the 
life  is  more  than  meat. 

Nor  is  this  a  plea  for  the  equalization  of  wealth. 
There  is  no  doubt  but  what  some  men  are  better 
fitted  to  distribute  wealth  than  others.  There  are 
two  sad  classes  of  humanity :  those  who  wor- 
ship the  mammon  that  they  possess  and  those 
who  worship  the  mammon  which  other  men  pos- 
sess. 

It  is  a  question  of  exchange.  We  must  not 
overlook,  as  we  bear  our  losses,  this  law  of  com- 
pensation. Besides  the  men  and  women  of  un- 
blushing selfishness  on  the  one  hand  and  of 
petulant  complaint  on  the  other,  there  is  a  third 
class  of  whom  there  are  too  few  in  our  day. 
They  are  those  who  can  find  the  medium  of  rea- 
sonable content,  who  would  learn  that  the  real 
things  of  life  are  the  unsullied  conscience,  sym- 
pathetic heart,  the  affection  of  the  home,  the  joy 
of  service. 

There  is  an  adjustment  between  material  pos- 
sessions and  heavenly  treasures,  but  it  is  a  straight 
and  narrow  way  and  few  are  they  who  find  it. 
On  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  unhappy  home  of 


Acquirement  by  Renunciation          1 29 

selfish  luxury  and  on  the  other  the  unhappy 
abode  of  pinched  faces  and  starved  forms.  Some- 
where there  is  a  balance  between  the  life  and  the 
meat,  between  self-culture  and  self-preservation 
and  service. 

In  the  last  analysis,  however,  the  law  of  Jesus 
is  true.  In  His  divine  providence,  God  often  il- 
lustrates it  by  His  apparent  exceptions.  Here  is 
some  man  whom  we  know  who  has  deserved 
honour  paid  him  by  his  fellow  men.  Go  back  into 
his  life  a  little  and  you  may  find  that  he  has  paid 
for  it  by  suffering.  Perhaps  men  did  not  always 
give  him  their  honour  but  their  cold  disdain. 

The  best  example  of  this  law  of  exchange  is  in 
the  home.  Here  it  is  perhaps  the  giving  up  of 
the  ease,  complacency,  luxury  of  the  man  in  his 
club  for  the  anxiety,  distress,  and  care  of  the 
father  in  his  household.  Here  we  have  the  para- 
dox illustrated  ;  the  joy  of  suffering  or  the  hap- 
piness of  sacrifice.  The  home  is  a  sovereign 
example  of  this  law  of  compensation  between  the 
material  and  the  spiritual — the  acquirement  of 
truth,  joy,  happiness,  and  peace  by  the  renuncia- 
tion of  self,  comfort,  and  material  content.  In  no 
other  realm  do  we  discover  that  we  find  life  by 
losing  it  as  we  do  in  our  homes.  True  parents 
are  continually  cutting  off  something  for  the  sake 
of  their  children.  It  is  an  example  of  the  loss  of 
the  world  and  the  gaining  of  the  soul. 

We  must  not  forget  to  put  the  law  the  other 


130     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

way.  We  never  can  relinquish  the  material  and 
not  gain  the  spiritual.  Our  real  happiness  is  de- 
termined by  our  attitude,  whether  it  be  that  of 
regretfully  watching  things  that  recede  or  keep- 
ing our  eyes  fixed  upon  the  things  we  are  gain- 
ing. 

This  is  why  some  men  and  women  learn  to 
bear  increasing  burdens  with  an  ever-sweeter 
spirit.  It  is  often  possible  to  gain  something  of 
the  unconcern  of  Jesus,  who  was  the  same  Jesus 
whether  at  the  dinner  of  the  Pharisee  or  appeas- 
ing His  hunger  by  plucking  the  ears  of  corn  in 
the  fields.  This  splendid  balance  can  only  come 
from  the  consciousness  of  this  divine  compensa- 
tion. 

Nor  is  this  a  religion  of  unhappiness.  When 
is  the  parent  happiest ;  when  he  is  buying  some- 
thing for  himself  or  for  the  child  ?  Yet,  when  he 
is  buying  for  the  child  he  is  buying  still  more  for 
himself. 

If  it  be  true  that  self-preservation  is  the  first 
law  of  nature,  it  is  truer  still  that  self-giving  is 
the  finer  law  of  spiritual  attainment. 


IX 

OUT  OF  GREAT  TRIBULATION 

THE  book  of  Revelation  has  been  trivially 
used,  but  it  is  not  a  trivial  book.  In 
language  of  dignity,  majesty,  and  fig- 
urative splendour,  it  conveys  thought  of  magni- 
tude, profundity,  and  beauty.  Almost  every  word 
in  it  counts.  In  its  summing  up  of  the  ultimate 
order  of  human  development,  it  frequently  gives 
expression  to  the  meaning  of  perplexing  human 
experiences. 

"  What  are  these  which  are  arrayed  in  white 
robes  and  whence  came  they  ?  These  are  they 
which  came  out  of  great  tribulation  and  have 
washed  their  robes  and  made  them  white  in  the 
blood  of  the  lamb." 

In  this  utterance  the  robes  of  white  are  the 
symbol  of  refinement ;  tribulation  is  the  human 
experience  of  discipline  ;  the  blood  of  the  lamb 
is  the  spirit  of  the  Son  of  Man.  The  meaning  is 
that  refinement  of  character  is  made  in  the  cru- 
cible of  experience. 

In  our  moments  of  trivial  meditation  it  some- 
times looks  to  us  as  though  life  would  assume 
perfection  if  it  were  only  a  more  comfortable 
order.  We  are  dwelling  much  on  this  to-day. 


132     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

There  are  two  types  of  character  to  shun  :  one  is 
that  of  selfish  and  unconcerned  content ;  the 
other  is  that  of  misguided  philanthropic  sym- 
pathy. 

There  is  no  doubt  a  good  deal  of  hypocrisy 
and  cant  uttered  by  those  who  look  out  upon  the 
world  in  soft  raiment  from  kings'  palaces  and 
bid  it  be  content  in  its  suffering  and  resigned  to 
its  wretchedness. 

Yet  it  is,  as  George  A.  Gordon  has  said,  a 
profound  fact  of  human  existence  that  our 
deepest  human  interests  are  at  one  and  the  same 
time  our  most  treasured  possessions  and  our 
dearest  burdens.  The  things  that  bring  the 
deepest  joys  may  also  convey  the  keenest  sor- 
rows. The  same  thing  may  be  the  source  of  our 
delight  and  of  our  distress. 

We  delight  in  it  because  it  makes  life  rich  and 
full.  It  is  our  anxiety  and  distress  because  it  is 
so  fragile  and  may  so  easily  slip  away.  Our 
human  life  is  like  the  evasive  sunlight  on  a 
cloudy  day.  Take,  for  example,  the  joy  of  the 
parent  in  the  child ;  at  its  best  and  noblest  its 
every  moment  is  filled  with  the  presentiment  of 
fear  and  the  portent  of  disaster,  beginning  back 
at  the  very  first  prophetic  sense  of  motherhood. 
The  child  becomes  the  perpetual  anxiety  of  the 
mother,  and  the  mother  is  the  serious  solicitude 
of  the  father,  long  before  the  infant  sees  the  light 
of  day.  This  is  but  a  figure  of  the  days  to  come, 


Out  of  Great  Tribulation  133 

and  this  experience  is  but  the  symbol  of  all  hu- 
man experience.  There  is,  then,  this  great  fact 
of  existence  upon  which  hangs  the  very  thread 
of  life.  Give  the  man  his  highest  joy  and  you 
may  also  be  handing  him  his  deepest  sorrow. 

Common  and  universal  as  is  this  experience 
there  are,  however,  two  contrasting  ways  of  view- 
ing it.  There  is  no  moral  difference  between 
men  that  is  so  great.  On  the  one  hand,  the  man 
is  thinking  how  pleasant  and  beautiful ;  or,  how 
hard  and  dark  this  is  !  Other  men  do  not  so  im- 
press us.  They  seem  above  and  beyond  mere 
questions  of  content  or  pain,  beyond  desire  for 
pleasure  as  such,  or  complaint  of  suffering  in 
itself.  Some  men  and  women  are  always  like  a 
child,  asking,  "  Will  it  hurt  ? "  while  to  others 
the  question  seldom  seems  to  come.  We  have 
here  another  of  those  illuminating  examples  of 
the  truth  of  Jesus,  that  he  who  would  save  his 
life  loses  it  and  he  who  will  lose  it  saves  it. 

Here  is  the  man  who  is  eternally  asking,  Am 
1  as  happy  as  I  ought  to  be  ?  Will  this  make 
me  happy  ?  Am  I  appreciated  or  am  I  mis- 
judged ?  Am  I  in  health  or  am  I  in  danger  of 
contagion  ?  He  loses  the  very  thing  he  seeks, 
in  grasping  for  it.  How  clear  it  is  that  self-for- 
getfulness  is  the  truest  self-realization.  How  true 
that  our  larger  joys  are  in  the  realm  of  the  un- 
conscious. 

Thus  there  is  no  wider  difference  between  men 


134     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

than  their  contrasting  attitude  towards  the  min- 
istry of  tribulation.  Refinement  of  the  human 
character  and  spirit  is  in  the  crucible  of  its  ex- 
perience. The  strength  and  the  dignity  of  per- 
sonality is  in  direct  proportion  to  the  intensity  of 
moral  struggle. 

This  ministry  of  tribulation  comes  in  a  myriad 
of  forms.  In  the  first  place,  it  may  be  in  the 
bearing  of  the  burdens  of  life,  the  overworked 
body,  hard  circumstances. 

Then  to  them  that  hath  is  given,  and  the  men 
who  can  bear  their  own  burdens  bravely  are 
those  who  become  the  bearers  of  the  burdens  of 
other  men. 

Take  the  man  of  ease  and  comfort  and  he  is 
apt  to  be  a  man  of  grudging  sympathy.  The 
burdens  of  life  increase  upon  those  who  are 
strong  by  an  alternating  evolution.  The  law 
rises  and  those  who  bear  their  own  burdens  are 
those  who  fulfill  the  law  of  Christ  in  bearing  one 
another's.  The  larger  the  man  the  greater  the 
burden  that  comes  to  him,  while  the  more  he 
bears  the  less  conscious  he  is  of  its  weight. 

Thus  we  are  led  into  this  complex  law  that  the 
finer,  nobler,  deeper  the  person  becomes,  the 
deeper  are  the  waters  of  tribulation  which  open 
before  him. 

Take  for  example  the  conscientious  pursuance 
of  duty,  the  daring  procedure  of  initiative  action, 
with  its  attendant  resistance.  The  easy  way  of 


Out  of  Great  Tribulation  135 

life  is  that  of  compliance  and  expediency ;  the 
avoidance  of  pain  is  the  evasion  of  consequences. 
It  is  a  sad  and  glorious  story  from  the  days  of 
the  prophets  to  our  own  day.  Elijah's  income 
is  reduced  to  the  providence  of  ravens  and  poor 
widows.  The  world,  age  after  age,  has  been  a 
Jerusalem  stoning  those  sent  unto  her.  Great 
messages  come  to  deaf  ears,  visions  of  truth  to 
blind  eyes,  noble  calls  to  faltering  feet. 

But  this  is  just  as  glorious  as  it  is  sad,  for,  over 
against  this  background,  witness  the  light  on  the 
pages  of  history.  Who  are  these  saviours  of  the 
world  pictured  to-day  upon  the  pages  of  biog- 
raphy in  robes  of  white  ?  These  are  they  which 
came  out  of  great  tribulation.  They  came  out 
of  disloyalty,  disappointment,  and  defeat,  out  of 
coldness,  censoriousness,  criticism,  and  contempt ; 
out  of  resistance,  recrimination,  and  reproach. 
The  light  shining  upon  the  darkness  of  the  world 
is  from  their  souls. 

Let  us  take  something  nearer  to  us,  of  our 
common  heritage  of  suffering,  anxiousness,  so- 
licitude. How  it  spells  those  other  words  in  the 
lexicon  of  life,  sympathy,  sacrifice,  affection,  pa- 
tience, calmness,  if  we  only  let  it  write  these  names 
on  our  foreheads. 

Yea,  even  peace.  For  he  who  foregoes  the 
anxious  cares,  the  danger  of  loss,  the  hours  of 
trembling  fear,  he  who  has  never  known  the  sus- 
pense of  awaiting  the  verdict  of  the  doctor,  has 


)  36     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

never  held  his  ear  to  listen  for  the  breathing  of 
the  little  child,  who  has  escaped  the  vigils  of  the 
night,  has  seldom  known,  or  realized,  or  deepened 
into  all  its  finer  meaning  the  glorious  self-forget- 
fulness  of  human  affection. 

Phillips  Brooks  has  put  it  beautifully  in  another 
analogy  from  the  book  of  Revelation,  "  The  sea 
of  glass  mingled  with  fire."  The  sea  of  glass  is 
the  type  of  repose,  rest,  peace,  but  it  is  mingled 
with  the  fire  of  trial  and  struggle.  Repose 
mingled  with  conflict.  Fire,  the  symbol  of  the 
process  of  refinement,  and  through  the  mingling 
of  the  fire  the  transparent  beauty  of  the  glass. 
Calmness  pervaded  by  discipline,  so  that  we  may 
even  say,  "It  is  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
than  never  to  have  loved  at  all." 

The  moral  danger  of  life  is  not  adversity.  The 
spiritual  peril  of  existence  is  our  thoughtless,  self- 
ish prosperity.  As  the  seer  of  Patmos  has  said 
again,  "  Him  that  overcometh  I  will  make  a 
pillar  in  the  temple  of  God."  The  word  pillar 
in  the  original  is  a  word  signifying  the  sense  of 
unusual  strength  and  power. 

This  truth  points  out  the  way  in  which  to  meet 
tribulation.  Never  by  the  answer  of  despair. 
The  sad  wastes  of  human  life  are  among  those 
in  whom  deep  does  not  answer  unto  deep.  Never 
by  the  stoic  answer  of  indifference,  the  hardening 
of  the  heart,  the  dulling  of  affection.  Never  by 
the  Epicurean  avoidance  of  pain  and  seeking  of 


Out  of  Great  Tribulation  137 

pleasure.  The  saddest  of  men  are  those  who 
seek  to  drown  their  fate,  their  sorrow,  their  dis- 
appointment, for  in  drowning  their  disasters  they 
inundate  themselves.  The  world  is  full  of  men 
and  women  who  seek  escape  from  death  by 
suicide. 

Let  us  cease  asking,  Will  I  be  happy  ?  Let 
us  stop  putting  the  question,  Shall  I  get  credit  ? 
Let  us  cease  our  inquiry,  Will  this  minister  to 
my  own  culture  ?  He  only  is  happy  who  does 
not  think  of  being  happy.  Thus,  we  may  even 
learn  the  gracious  receiving  of  abuse  with  an 
ever  sweeter  spirit.  In  the  hour  of  the  world's 
clamour  we  may  find  the  eternal  sphere  of  silence. 
Let  patience  do  her  perfect  work  of  strength,  let 
sympathy  wait  on  sorrow  and  affection  deepen 
with  the  touch  of  service.  Let  us  not  reverse 
God's  order,  nor  let  the  deeper  need  of  life  find 
answer  in  increasing  weakness,  but  rather,  go 
from  strength  to  strength. 

One  of  the  greatest  of  arts  is  the  gentle  art  of 
non-resistance,  the  turning  of  the  other  cheek, 
that  with  the  psalmist  we  may  say,  "  Thy  gentle- 
ness hath  made  me  great." 

"  They  have  washed  their  robes  in  the  blood 
of  the  lamb."  These  words  bring  us  to  the 
secret  of  it  all.  He  walked  upon  that  sea  of 
glass  mingled  with  fire.  Nowhere  in  human  life 
has  this  ever  been  so  true  as  in  Him.  Who 
then  shall  separate  us  from  the  love  of  Christ  ? 


138     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

Shall  tribulation,  distress,  or  persecution  ?  Nay, 
in  all  these  things,  we  may  be  more  than  con- 
querors. We  may  then  train  our  ears  to  hear 
His  voice :  "  Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled." 

Do  you  not  feel  this  as  the  writer  has  felt  it  ? 
Sometimes  he  has  wished  for  a  pastorate  that 
had  no  problems,  has  wished  that  the  home 
might  be  free  from  its  anxious  distractions,  and 
that  human  life  might  be  relieved  of  its  disturb- 
ing cares.  Sometimes  it  seems  as  though  we 
might  then  move  on  and  upward,  if  there  were 
not  so  much  resistance  to  overcome.  But  this  is 
the  mood  of  peevish  complaint. 

The  background  of  the  mystery  we  may  not 
altogether  penetrate.  The  wicket  gate  is  still 
beyond  our  clear  sight.  The  clouds  will  always 
obscure,  but  at  least  in  this  truth  we  may  discern 
the  direction  of  the  light  and  the  clouds  them- 
selves may  even  reveal  the  sunlight  that  is  be- 
yond us. 


X 

GOING  BEYOND  DUTY 

JESUS  always  spoke  of  human  life  in  a  di- 
vine language.  He  discussed  temporal 
things  in  eternal  terms  of  speech.  For  the 
most  trivial  duties  He  gave  the  profoundest  prin- 
ciples. For  all  common,  practical  living  He  bore 
witness  to  ideal  visions. 

The  Gospel  of  John  has  given  us  many  of 
these  spiritual  ideals  in  philosophic  form.  The 
Gospel  of  Luke,  in  contrast,  tells  much  about 
our  moral  living  and  gives  us  a  plan  of  action. 
Yet  behind  Luke  there  are  always  great  prin- 
ciples of  life  as  deep  as  eternity  itself. 

The  gospel  attributed  to  the  pen  of  the  be- 
loved physician  reveals  to  us  some  of  the  Master's 
difficulties  in  molding  the  ethics  of  his  day. 
Those  difficulties,  strange  to  say,  were  not  with 
the  sinners  and  the  publicans.  They  were  with 
the  moral  leaders  of  his  day,  the  Scribes  and 
the  Pharisees.  He  had  his  chief  controversies 
with  those  men  who  were  self-satisfied  because 
of  their  moral  attainment.  Therefore  the  third 
gospel,  with  this  subjective  influence,  has  many 
such  passages  as  this  one,  "  For  every  one  that 
exalteth  himself  shall  be  abased,  and  he  that 


140     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted. "  And  again, 
"So  likewise  ye,  when  ye  shall  have  done  all 
those  things  which  are  commanded  you,  say, 
We  are  unprofitable  servants,  we  have  only  done 
that  which  it  was  our  duty  to  do." 

It  is  said  that,  in  our  day  and  generation,  there 
is,  among  those  counted  to  be  religious,  a  loss 
in  the  sense  of  sin.  Yet  it  is  easier  to-day  to 
bring  a  flagrant  sinner  to  see  the  power  of  the 
Gospel  than  it  is  to  bring  religious  men  and 
women  to  comprehend  its  depth  and  height. 

This  human  society  of  ours  is  pervaded  with 
self-satisfaction.  We  hear  men  say  things  like 
this :  I  do  about  as  near  right  as  I  can.  My 
conscience  is  clear.  They  can  say  this  because 
they  have  a  very  moderate  sense  of  what  is  right, 
they  have  a  tempered  idea  of  obligation,  they 
need  a  finer  and  more  sensitive  conscience. 

The  difference  between  Jesus  and  the  other 
masters  of  ethics  is  that  His  Gospel  is  the  purest 
of  idealism.  Christian  attainment,  according  to 
the  Master  of  Christianity,  is  the  pursuit  of  a 
flying  goal.  Jesus  took  the  satisfactory  moral 
standards  of  the  ethical  leaders  and  teachers  of 
His  day  to  the  mountain  of  transfiguration,  and 
shed  upon  them  the  light  of  His  self-sacrificing 
idealism.  It  was  not  enough  even  that  men 
should  do  their  duty. 

By  the  word  duty  we  generally  mean  the  re- 
quirements of  society  or  of  our  class  in  society. 


Going  Beyond  Duty  141 

We  mean  that  which  constitutes  what  might  be 
called  the  ordinary,  or  average,  conscience.  At 
most  we  mean  a  conformity  to  strict  right  and 
rigid  justice. 

According  to  Jesus  the  ultimate  principle  of 
man's  life  is  in  its  unseen  motives ;  the  ideal 
which  is  his  guiding  standard,  not  a  performance 
of  immediate  obligations,  but  his  vision  of  some- 
thing beyond,  ever  better  than  he  is;  not  his 
immediate  action,  but  the  larger  light  which  he 
is  pursuing.  According  to  the  Gospel,  moral 
progress  is  not  simply  meeting  the  demands  of 
conscience.  It  is  infinitely  more.  It  is  the  ac- 
quirement of  an  ever  finer  conscience.  It  is  not 
the  reaching  of  an  ideal.  It  is  the  constant  wit- 
nessing of  another  and  a  better  vision  beyond. 

The  largeness  of  a  man's  life  is  determined  by 
the  way  in  which  he  measures  it,  whether  by  the 
general  consent  and  the  contentment  of  his  fel- 
low men,  or  by  the  moral  demands  of  Jesus. 

The  significance  of  the  Master  as  a  moral 
teacher  is  just  here.  He  takes  our  moderate 
moral  ideas  and  lifts  them  to  divine  ideals.  He 
gives  us  a  higher  law  than  that  of  satisfying 
conscience.  It  is  the  law  of  an  ever  new  and 
better  conscience  itself.  "  Be  ye  perfect  as  your 
Father  in  heaven  is  perfect."  Thus  the  cross  of 
Christ,  which  is  the  symbol  of  a  Christian  ethic, 
is  infinitely  beyond  the  moral  codes  which  men 
make  daily. 


142     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

The  human  conscience  is  generally  conformed 
to  a  certain  standard  of  action.  Jesus'  law  is  the 
impulse  of  spiritual  being.  Conscience  is  con- 
formity to  law  and  strict  duty.  The  law  of  Christ 
is  conformity  to  an  unmeasured  love  and  sacri- 
fice. Thus  a  man's  life  rises  according  to  the  in- 
creasing measure  of  his  standard  and  not  by  the 
fulfilling  of  his  standard ;  it  is  determined  not  by 
meeting  the  demands  of  his  conscience,  but  by 
the  growing  measure  of  that  conscience  itself. 

One's  moral  valuation  is  determined  by 
whether  he  contrasts  himself  with  those  below 
him,  forgetting  the  inequalities  of  start,  and 
thanks  God  that  he  is  not  as  other  men  are  ; 
with  those  upon  his  own  level  and  congratulates 
himself  that  he  is  no  worse  than  other  men  ;  or 
by  the  standard  of  Christ,  witnessing  how  far  he 
is  from  being  Christlike. 

We  do  not  begin  our  moral  progress  until  we 
know  our  own  worth.  We  do  not  move  on- 
ward until  our  worth  recedes  in  view  of  the  bet- 
ter that  we  might  be.  Moral  evolution  is  the 
pursuit  of  an  ever  flying  goal.  It  is  like  the 
ascent  of  the  mountain,  the  higher  we  go  up  the 
larger  becomes  our  view.  Our  duties  are  ever 
expanding  upon  the  face  of  the  scene  of  life,  the 
goal  ever  recedes  as  we  approach  it,  goodness 
grows  larger  as  we  draw  near  to  it.  Thus  it  is 
that  the  holiest  of  saints  have  ever  been  the 
humblest  of  sinners.  We  may  pray  at  the  close 


Going  Beyond  Duty  143 

of  the  day,  "  I  have  done  my  duty ;  bless  and  re- 
ward me,  my  Father  "  or  we  may  better  pray, 
"  I  have  only  done  my  duty  ;  lift  me  higher  upon 
the  morrow  and  reveal  to  me  the  larger  duties 
which  I  have  not  done."  Yet  how  often  we  per- 
mit ourselves,  with  the  air  of  relief,  the  sense  of 
attainment,  the  spirit  of  complacency,  to  say,  "  I 
have  done  my  duty  by  him." 

First  of  all,  is  it  ever  true,  even  at  a  moderate, 
average  estimate  ?  Of  course,  it  depends  upon 
the  ideal  of  duty,  but,  as  commonly  conceded, 
have  we  ever  met  our  obligations  ?  Suppose  one 
could  say,  "  My  present  moral  debts  are  paid." 
How  about  the  sins  of  youth  ?  We  cannot  go 
before  our  Maker  as  we  would  to  the  store- 
keeper and  pay  him  this  year's  debts,  receiving 
our  release  when  we  have  not  paid  them  for  the 
last  year. 

Do  we  ever  return  the  good  and  the  kindness 
that  we  have  received  from  the  parents  and  the 
teachers  of  our  youth  ?  Can  the  one  ever  return 
all  that  he  has  received  from  the  many  ?  If  we 
say,  "  I  am  now  keeping  the  commandments," 
how  about  those  that  were  broken  in  days  gone 
by  ?  Are  we  ever  square  with  the  world,  in  view 
of  the  misspent  years  which  can  never  be  re- 
gained ?  Is  it  not  clear  that  our  moral  debts  are 
never  paid  except  by  the  forgiving  grace  of  both 
God  and  fellow  men  ?  Without  this  are  not  our 
lives  left  with  eternal  moral  voids  ? 


144     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

It  may  be  that  some  higher  lives  seem  to  give 
more  than  they  receive,  but  at  least  with  most  of 
us  restitution  in  quantity  is  out  of  the  question. 

We  are  doing  something  good  now,  but  we 
ought  to  do  that  even  if  we  had  never  done  any- 
thing wrong  before.  Thus,  according  to  the  law, 
this  day's  good  deed  fills  its  own  measure,  but 
not  the  void  of  yesterday's  neglect.  Thus  every 
one  of  us  must  avail  himself  of  an  atonement 
and  become  a  child  of  grace. 

Sit  down  some  time  and  let  pass  before  your 
eyes  the  past  that  never  can  return.  Its  evil 
deeds,  its  procession  of  neglects,  the  multitude 
of  its  wrong  thoughts  and  unjust  judgments. 
Just  witness  the  amount  of  time  that  we  all  spend 
in  repairing  our  misguided  lives.  Each  day,  ac- 
cording to  strict  moral  law,  ought  to  be  occupied 
in  the  new  and  immediate  duty  of  the  present. 
Is  it  not  absurd  for  any  one  of  us  to  suppose  that 
we  can  catch  up  with  time  ?  No,  there  is  always 
the  great  wide  desert  of  the  past  which  no  re- 
morse can  recall,  no  present  goodness  can  undo. 
No  one  of  us  can  stand  upon  his  record  before 
God.  We  need  an  atonement. 

But  suppose  even  that  the  past  may  be  wiped 
out,  suppose  according  to  the  measure  of  the 
world  we  may  say,  "  I  am  now  doing  my  duty." 
Is  even  this  the  extent  of  moral  obligation  ?  Not 
according  to  the  ideal  of  Jesus.  Let  us  grant 
that  all  our  past  debts  are  paid  and  we  are  now 


Going  Beyond  Duty  145 

doing  right  Even  this,  according  to  Jesus,  is 
merely  the  starting-point  and  not  the  goal.  If  it 
might  have  been  the  goal  of  yesterday,  it  has 
moved  on  to-day. 

By  the  Master's  law  there  is  no  real  merit  in 
moral  debt  paying.  We  must  go  beyond  strict 
moral  obligation  to  free  self-giving.  Thus  if  all 
the  other  men  in  the  world  could  say  to  you, 
"  I  have  received  my  rights,"  it  would  not  be 
enough. 

Suppose  it  were  the  quality  of  generosity. 
Some  one  asks  you,  "  Are  you  generous  ?  "  and 
you  answer,  "  Yes,  I  pay  all  my  debts."  Would 
not  this  be  a  poor,  haggard  generosity  ?  So  in 
the  moral  realm  there  are  no  bounds  to  duty. 
He  who  asks  with  Peter,  "  How  many  times  shall 
I  forgive  ?  "  has  failed  to  catch  the  spirit  of  Christ. 
There  is  only  one  man  who  has  committed  the 
unpardonable  sin  and  who  is  irrevocably  lost.  It 
is  the  man  whose  moral  sense  and  development 
have  been  arrested,  who  wraps  himself  in  the  soft 
garments  of  content  and  says,  "  I  have  done  my 
duty  ;  my  conscience  is  clear."  Such  a  man  may 
feel  the  gaze  of  his  fellow  men  without  the  sense 
of  abasement,  but  he  does  not  feel  the  eye  of 
God.  He  may  have  comprehended  the  law  of 
Sinai,  but  he  has  not  seen  Calvary,  or  Christ,  or 
heard  His  voice.  He  may  have  seen  the  right 
which  he  has  done,  but  he  has  not  seen  the 
wrong  which  he  might  have  prevented.  Men 


146     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

have  quarrelled  over  the  doctrine  of  atonement, 
and  yet  every  man  must  say,  I  cannot  stand  on 
my  own  merit ;  some  one  else  must  fill  my  moral 
voids  that  I  may  stand  before  God. 

Spiritual  attainment  is  arrested  at  the  point 
where  we  may  say  at  the  close  of  the  day,  "  I  have 
earned  my  rest  because  I  have  done  my  duty." 
We  ought  to  say,  "  I  will  rest  this  night  for  my 
unfinished  task  to-morrow." 

Duty  then  must  be  left  behind  as  we  enter 
upon  the  paths  of  self-sacrifice.  We  must  be 
willing  not  only  to  meet  our  obligations  but  to 
give  even  more  than  we  can  spare.  We  must 
do  more  than  bear  our  own  burdens  ;  our  hearts 
must  be  heavy  with  the  burdens  of  others.  We 
must  not  only  repair  our  own  wrongs  but  those 
of  other  men  and  pay  the  portion  of  others  who 
cannot  or  who  will  not.  This  is  the  joy  of  the 
cross. 

Just  imagine  Jesus  saying,  "  I  have  done  My 
duty."  We  cannot  think  it  of  Him.  Not  until 
He  went  to  the  cross  could  He  say,  "  It  is  fin- 
ished/' He  demands  more  of  us  than  that  we 
should  pay  up  our  subscriptions.  Human  duty 
cannot  be  kept  by  bookkeeping  and  the  balanc- 
ing of  moral  ledgers. 

In  the  sight  of  God  and  under  the  sway  of  the 
cross,  our  moral  liabilities  are  always  large,  our 
assets  very  small  and  only  the  cross  of  Christ  can 
save  us  from  insolvency.  We  bear  no  burdens 


Going  Beyond  Duty  147 

that  we  can  ever  lay  down  and  say,  "  I  have  car- 
ried them  long  enough."  We  cannot  pray, 
"  My  hour  is  come,  I  have  finished  the  work  that 
Thou  gavest  me  to  do,  glorify  me  with  Thine 
own  glory." 

What  use  is  there  in  talking  about  the  repay- 
ment of  our  wrongs,  when  we  take  into  account 
not  only  the  evil  we  do  but  that  which  we  might 
prevent  others  from  doing  ?  Suppose  we  could 
repay  for  all  the  suffering  we  have  caused.  This 
would  not  answer  for  that  which  we  might  have 
assuaged  and  comforted. 

Again,  suppose  God  gave  to  us  strict  justice, 
who  of  us  could  stand  ?  Suppose  we  could  say, 
We  have  meted  out  to  men  due  justice.  Con- 
sider this,  that  in  the  course  of  justice  none  of  us 
could  see  salvation.  When,  then,  are  our  obli- 
gations met  ?  Only  when  we  have  ceased  to  sin 
and  have  atoned  for  all  the  wrongs  we  ever  did. 
Nay,  not  even  then,  for  we  should  still  say,  "We 
are  unprofitable  servants,  we  have  only  done  our 
duty."  One  of  the  most  dangerous  things  in 
this  world  is  a  clear  conscience.  It  means  that 
conscience  has  lost  its  burden  or  is  too  weak  to 
bear  one.  Even  if  it  means  that  we  have  gone 
as  far  as  Mount  Sinai,  we  have  not  reached  Cal- 
vary. Thus  we  may  well  reverence  Kant  in  his 
magnificent  Ode  to  Duty,  but  our  deeper  rever- 
ence is  for  Christ  facing  Jerusalem  and  looking 
towards  Golgotha. 


148     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

Where,  then,  shall  we  try  to  take  our  place  ? 
In  contented  self-delusion,  in  intelligent  self-con- 
sciousness, or  in  noble  self-forgetfulness  ?  Shall 
we  be  contented  with  the  common  law  of  man 
and  bear  our  own  burdens,  or  shall  we  bend  our 
backs  to  one  another's  burdens  and  so  fulfill  the 
law  of  Christ  ?  If  we  do  the  latter  all  the  burdens 
of  the  world  are  ours.  This  seems  hard,  but  God 
has  provided  the  way.  The  heavier  the  burden 
the  stronger  grows  the  back  to  bear  it.  As  the 
goal  recedes  the  runner's  speed  is  hastened. 
The  finer  the  human  conscience  becomes,  the 
stronger  is  it  to  endure. 

Be  not  deceived.  Self-satisfaction  is  not  joy 
and  peace.  It  is  but  a  lying  mask.  These  per- 
sonalities of  ours  are  like  the  widow's  cruse,  the 
more  we  pour  ourselves  out  the  more  there  is  left 
to  give.  Think  of  it  for  a  moment.  There  are 
the  qualities  of  affection  and  sympathy.  The 
more  strong  and  noble  things  we  do  the  more 
are  we  able  to  do.  The  more  we  love,  the  more 
we  are  capable  of  loving.  Thus  these  words  of 
Jesus  are  searching  but  not  discouraging.  In- 
deed the  farther  our  moral  goal  recedes  the  more 
sure  we  may  be  that  we  are  moving  onward. 
This  deepening  sense  of  incompleteness  means 
that  we  are  more  complete  in  the  nobility  of  our 
ideals.  The  less  feeling  we  have  of  the  sense  of 
attainment,  the  more  certain  we  may  be  that  we 
have  seen  Christ  and  are  trying  to  follow  Him. 


XI 

THE  UNHEARD  ANGEL 


"f  |  ^HE  people  that  stood  by  and  heard  it 
said  that  it  thundered  :  others  said  an 
angel  spake  to  Him." 

The  interpretation  of  the  fourth  gospel  is  full 
of  difficulties.  It  brings  up  a  multitude  of  ques- 
tions ;  critical,  psychological  and  philosophical. 
We  might  thus  begin  our  consideration  of  this 
scene  by  discussing  the  nature  of  the  incident. 
Was  it  a  miracle  or  was  the  experience  subjec- 
tive ?  But  I  propose  to  illustrate  a  method  of 
treating  Scripture  which  transcends  all  such 
methods.  Let  us  lay  aside  all  critical  problems. 
Let  us  look  at  the  picture  and  behold  its  mean- 
ing. There  is  a  lower  and  a  higher  criticism. 
The  highest  criticism  is  that  which  seeks  the 
spiritual  meaning. 

So  far  as  the  nature  of  the  incident  is  con- 
cerned, it  was  doubtless  a  reminiscence  upon 
which  the  writer  has  laid  hold,  that  he  may  use 
it  for  his  spiritual  lesson.  These  words  illustrate 
Jesus'  words  in  the  context.  He  declares  that 
the  method  of  the  salvation  of  the  world  is  the 
principle  of  sacrifice.  The  Son  of  Man  is  to  be 
glorified.  The  consummation  of  the  ineffable 

149 


150     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

revelation  is  the  cross ;  not  as  a  scheme  of  recon- 
ciliation but  as  the  revelation  of  self-sacrifice. 

This  is  the  order  of  thought.  The  selfish  love 
of  life  is  its  loss.  Men  serve  Him  by  following 
Him.  Then  He  utters  His  natural  prayer  for 
life,  and  His  responding  utterance  of  obedience 
and  surrender :  "  Father  save  Me  from  this 
hour."  This  is  the  voice  of  the  human  Jesus. 
"  Nay,  but  for  this  purpose  came  I  unto  this 
hour."  This  is  the  response  of  the  divine 
Christ.  While  He  prays  the  answer  comes: 
"This  is  Thy  glory.  Now  is  the  prince  of  this 
world  cast  out."  The  prince  of  this  world  is  hu- 
man selfishness.  It  is  cast  out  by  human  sacri- 
fice. It  surrenders  to  the  power  of  a  divine  un- 
failing love. 

Then  the  narrator  gathers  up  the  varied  ele- 
ments of  the  picture  and  declares  the  attractive- 
ness of  the  cross.  "  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw 
all  men  unto  Me."  Let  us  try  to  imagine  the  pic- 
ture. There  stand  the  serious,  inquiring  Greeks 
and  the  wondering  disciples.  Outside  their  circle 
is  the  bewildered  throng.  The  Son  of  Man  stands 
in  their  midst,  answering  the  supreme  question 
of  life :  How  is  the  world  to  be  saved  ?  Love 
shines  in  His  transfigured  face  as  He  declares  that 
it  is  to  be  saved  by  love ;  by  suffering  ;  by  self- 
denial  ;  by  sacrifice  ;  by  the  cross.  As  the  scene 
becomes  thus  profoundly  impressive ;  as  the 
spirituality  of  this  divine  personality  is  felt ;  a 


The  Unheard  Angel  151 

voice  comes,  as  at  the  Baptism  and  the  Trans- 
figuration. Something  is  represented  as  setting 
upon  His  utterance  the  seal  of  truth  in  the  minds 
of  those  who  hear  it.  "  Thou  hast  declared  it ; 
this  eternal  divine  power  is  self-sacrificing  love." 

The  Greeks,  the  disciples  and  the  multitude 
are  profoundly  impressed.  All  realize  that  some- 
thin  g  has  happened.  The  meaning  varies.  Some 
said,  "  It  thundered."  Others  said,  "  An  angel 
spake."  Some  interpreted  the  experience  as  a 
physical  phenomenon.  Others  felt  it  as  a  spirit- 
ual consciousness.  Some  eyes  could  behold  only 
the  natural  and  material.  Others  could  witness 
a  spiritual  vision.  Some  said,  "It  thundered." 
Others  said,  "  An  angel  spake  to  Him." 

Then  Jesus  goes  on  and  declares  the  very 
thing  which  they  reveal.  "  Walk  in  the  light," 
He  says.  The  writer  then  applies  Isaiah's  re- 
proach :  "  Their  eyes  were  hplden,  their  ears 
deaf."  They  turned  away  and  said,  "  It  thun- 
dered." Others  said,  "Behold  the  truth,"  and 
lingered. 

First  of  all,  notice  that  this  was  the  way  of  the 
world  in  Jesus'  time.  More  important  than  this, 
however,  that  it  is  the  habitual  attitude  of  human 
life. 

It  was  the  way  of  the  world  in  Jesus'  time.  A 
simple  Hebrew  boy  was  born  in  an  inn.  The 
busy  men  and  women  in  the  inn  knew  only  that 
a  Hebrew  boy  was  born.  A  few  shepherds  on 


152     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

the  plain  and  three  wise  men  knew  what  had 
really  happened.  These  beautiful  poetic  pictures 
in  the  gospels  illustrate  these  contrasting  attitudes 
to  Jesus  throughout  His  life.  Some  said  as  He 
passed  by,  "He  is  only  a  poor  insurrectionist." 
Others  said,  "  He  is  a  teacher  come  from  God." 
Only  eleven  recognized  Him  as  the  Master  of 
masters  and  only  part  of  that  eleven  knew  Him 
as  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  In  history,  the 
historian  of  His  time  refers  to  Him  in  one  short 
line.  The  writer  of  the  fourth  gospel  beheld  His 
eternal  meaning.  So  it  was  all  along.  Some 
said,  "  He  is  a  prophet."  Others  said,  "  He  is  a 
deceiver  of  the  people." 

There  He  was,  always  the  same  being,  with  the 
same  potent  personality ;  uttering  the  same 
eternal  truths  upon  the  ears  of  all  of  them. 
Some  said,  "  It  thundered."  Others  said, 
"  An  angel  spake." 

Our  main  lesson,  however,  is  to  witness  the 
prevalence  of  these  two  habitual  attitudes  in  our 
own  human  life. 

As  I  stood  on  one  of  the  busy  streets  of  London 
a  little  while  ago,  I  beheld  an  approaching  pro- 
cession. It  was  a  gathering  of  common  horse- 
shoers  on  their  way  to  Hyde  Park.  As  they 
passed  by,  some  saw  in  them  only  a  body  of 
rough,  uncouth,  uncultured,  misguided  men,  and 
bestowed  upon  them  a  smile  of  pity  or  disdain. 
Others  witnessed  the  pathos  of  the  scene.  It 


The  Unheard  Angel  153 

suggested  the  age-long  struggle  of  mankind  to 
better  the  human  conditions  of  its  weary  toil. 
Some  said,  "  It  thundered."  Others  said,  "  An 
angel  spake."  Thus  do  the  scenes  of  life  in 
eternal  contrast  impress  men ;  its  cries  ;  its  woes  ; 
its  groans ;  its  sorrows ;  its  struggles  and  its 
prophecies. 

I  walked  the  streets  of  historic  Florence. 
The  city  was  full  of  visitors.  Some,  as  they 
walked  about,  marked  the  loftiness  of  its 
cathedral,  the  colour  of  its  glass,  looked  for  a 
moment  on  the  faded  frescoes  of  San  Marco. 
As  they  walked  the  streets,  they  were  nothing  to 
them  but  bricks  and  pavements.  Others  could 
hear  the  voice  of  Savonarola.  They  could  see 
his  very  footprints  in  the  pavements.  They 
breathed  his  spirit  in  San  Marco.  Some  said, 
"It  thundered."  Others  said,  "An  angel  spake." 

A  little  later  I  visited  the  villages  of  Saint  Ives 
and  Huntingdon.  Some  men  would  say  that 
they  were  very  common  hamlets.  Others  could 
feel  the  very  air  vibrant  with  the  spirit  of  Crom- 
well. 

To  change  the  illustration,  one  man  passes  by 
a  great  cliff  of  rock.  It  is  only  a  piece  of  stone. 
It  has  no  voice.  It  tells  no  story.  It  imparts  no 
truth.  It  yields  no  revelation.  To  a  scientist, 
however,  it  tells  an  age-long  story  of  profoundest 
interest. 

Thus  we  have  witness  to  two  contrasting  habits 


154     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

of  life.  Some  eyes  behold  the  hidden  signifi- 
cance of  things ;  others  see  only  outward  forms. 
Some  men  and  women  invest  the  most  common 
things  with  a  spiritual  meaning ;  to  others  the 
profoundest  scenes  are  only  natural  and  common- 
place. Some  are  arrested  by  the  voice ;  others 
only  hear  it  thunder. 

To  show  this  common  twofold  attitude,  we 
might  begin  with  the  natural  order.  The  world 
is  full  of  Peter  Bells. 


"  A  primrose  by  a  river's  brim 
A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him 
And  it  was  nothing  more." 


Others  behold  the  revelations  of  nature  with 
the  poet's  eye,  "  To  him  who  in  the  love  of  nature 
holds  communion  with  her  visible  forms,  she 
speaks  a  varied  language." 

To  some  a  sunset  glow,  the  majesty  of  an 
ocean,  the  snow-crowned  mountain,  are  nothing 
but  phenomena  of  nature.  To  others  every 
grove  is  a  holy  place,  every  passing  beauty  is  a 
shrine  like  those  along  the  Alpine  roads,  and 
every  natural  revelation  speaks  through  its 
charm,  its  majesty  or  its  gentle  stillness,  of 
another  world. 

This  same  thing  is  true  and  truer  of  practical 
life.  To  some  men  and  women,  home  is  little 
more  than  a  dwelling  place ;  marriage  is  a  con- 


The  Unheard  Angel  155 

venient  (if  not  an  inconvenient)  way  of  living. 
The  household  means  a  necessary  drudgery. 
The  mart  or  shop  are  places  for  making  money. 
Human  society  is  little  more  than  an  aggregate 
of  men  and  women.  To  others  all  are  holy. 
Home  is  a  sacred  place  ;  over  some  mothers 
angels  bend  and  speak  their  annunciations. 

"  The  soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  star, 
Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting 
And  corneth  from  afar. 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 
From  God,  who  is  our  home ; 
Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy/' 

To  such,  love  is  a  sacrament,  the  daily  toil  a  joy- 
ful means  of  the  higher  ends  of  sacrifice ;  human 
society  is  God's  holy  family  on  earth. 

To  some  most  things  are  secular  and  human  ; 
to  others  all  things  are  sacred  and  divine.  The 
world  is  full  of  desecrated  sanctuaries.  Some 
said,  "It  thundered."  Others  said,  "An  angel 
spake." 

To  carry  our  thought  still  further,  the  religious 
life  of  man  yields  this  contrasting  material  and 
spiritual  vision.  The  preacher  in  the  pulpit  may 
be,  in  his  way,  a  conscientious  man.  Yet  his 
prayer  may  be  little  more  than  an  exercise.  His 
sermon  may  be  the  delivery  of  a  truth  as  a  propo- 
sition rather  than  the  impartation  of  spiritual  life. 
And  I  am  sadly  aware  that  very  often  men  may 


156     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

well  go  away  and  say,  "It  thundered."  Yet 
there  are  times  when  they  might  have  said,  "An 
angel  spake." 

So  to  hearers  and  worshippers  the  reading  of 
the  Holy  Scripture  may  impart  neither  instruc- 
tion nor  inspiration.  The  hymn  may  be  neither 
a  confession  nor  praise.  The  sermon  may  be 
only  an  artistic  or  an  inartistic  product.  The 
benediction  may  be  either  a  signal  to  depart  or 
the  gathering  up  of  sacred  feelings  and  experi- 
ences. 

Men  often  go  away  and  say  it  thundered, 
when  they  might  have  said,  "  God's  voice  spake 
to  me  this  morning;  in  reproof  of  my  sins,  in 
comfort  for  my  sorrows,  in  courage  and  hope  for 
my  discouragement  and  despair ;  in  refreshment 
for  my  weariness.  I  beheld  Christ  this  morning." 

After  all,  perhaps,  I  have  put  this  wrong.  It 
does  not  seem  the  truest  to  say  of  us  that  some 
are  blind  and  deaf  while  others  hear  it  all.  Both 
things  are  true  of  all  of  us.  Life  has  both  as- 
pects, and  its  real  moral  struggle  consists  in 
this  varying  disposition.  So,  sometimes,  home 
seems  a  very  practical  and,  at  other  times,  a  very 
heavenly  place.  Some  days  life  is  nothing  but  a 
vexing  problem;  other  days  it  is  a  sacred  joy. 
Sometimes  work  is  but  a  drudgery ;  again  it  is 
illuminated  by  a  holy  flame.  Sometimes  we 
treat  society  with  a  selfish  attitude ;  at  other 
times  we  are  softened  by  the  spirit  of  brother- 


The  Unheard  Angel  157 

hood.  Some  Sundays  our  worship  is  all  cold 
and  dull ;  others  it  is  a  holy  inspiration. 

The  order  of  life  is  the  order  of  increasing 
spiritual  light ;  as  all  the  varied  elements  of  toil, 
of  sacrifice,  of  joy  and  sorrow  gain  their  holier 
meaning  and  reach  their  mountain  of  trans- 
figuration. 

And  yet  again,  I  was  not  altogether  wrong  at 
first.  It  is  true  that  there  is  a  prevailing  temper 
and  cast  of  mind  in  every  one  of  us,  and,  in  the 
balance,  some  men  and  women  are  materialistic 
and  earthly,  while  others  by  constant  listening 
have  grown  quick  to  catch  the  higher  notes  of 
the  universal  order.  Amid  the  same  scenes,  the 
same  environments  of  life,  some  pass  by  and  say 
it  thundered,  while  others  wait  and  listen  to  the 
angePs  voice. 

The  meaning  is  this :  You  may  give  to  life 
either  its  natural  or  its  divine  interpretation.  It 
means  that  two  of  you  may  be  living  side  by 
side,  and  yet  living  in  two  widely  different  worlds. 

Some  said,  "  It  thundered."  Others  said,  "An 
angel  spake  to  Him." 


XII 

THE  MEASURE  OF  RELIGIOUS  AFFECTION 

"  IT  ESUS  saith  to  Simon  Peter,  Simon,  son  of 
Jonas,  lovest  thou  Me  more  than  these? 
+J  He  saith  unto  Him,  Yea,  Lord,  Thou  know- 
est  that  I  love  Thee.  He  saith  unto  him,  Feed 
My  lambs.  He  saith  to  him  the  second  time, 
Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  Me  ?  He  saith 
unto  Him,  Yea,  Lord,  Thou  knowest  that  I  love 
Thee.  He  saith  unto  him,  Feed  My  sheep.  He 
saith  unto  him  the  third  time,  Simon,  son  of 
Jonas,  lovest  thou  Me?  Peter  was  grieved  be- 
cause He  saith  unto  him  the  third  time,  Lovest 
thou  Me  ?  And  he  said  unto  Him,  Lord,  Thou 
knowest  all  things ;  Thou  knowest  that  I  love 
Thee.  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Feed  My  sheep." 

The  lesson  of  this  dialogue  is:  The  test  of 
true  discipleship,  the  nature  of  genuine  allegiance, 
sincere  homage,  and  real  devotion — the  true  ex- 
pression of  a  true  affection  for  Christ.  It  is  not 
my  intent  to  disparage  the  worship  of  Christ  or 
the  confessions  of  His  name,  but  to  indicate  the 
ultimate  mode  which  their  expression  must 
take. 

Humanity  without  religion  is  an  unfortunate  if 
not  an  impossible  thing.  But  religion  without 

158 


The  Measure  of  Religious  Affection     1 59 

humanity  is  infinitely  worse  than  humanity  with- 
out religion.  If  such  a  contrast  were  possible,  to 
love  God  and  not  to  love  mankind  would  be 
supremely  worse  than  to  love  man  and  forget  the 
abstract,  theoretic  God. 

The  heart  of  religion  is  the  love  of  God.  The 
heart  of  Christianity  is  the  love  of  God  in  Christ 
and  the  love  of  Christ.  The  Infinite  identified 
Himself  with  Jesus,  and  to  love  Jesus  is  to  love 
the  God  whom  He  ineffably  reveals.  In  like 
manner,  Jesus  ever  identified  Himself  with  hu- 
manity. Thus  to  love  humanity  is  to  love  Jesus 
Christ.  The  love  of  the  disciple  for  the  Master 
is  measured  by  the  love  of  the  disciple  for  his 
brethren.  To  love  humanity  and  to  love  Christ 
are  one  and  inseparable  now  and  forever.  This 
is  Jesus'  lesson  to  Peter. 

Worship  and  appreciation  would  not  suffice. 
On  the  memorable  occasion  of  Caesarea  Philippi, 
Peter  had  been  the  first  to  declare  in  terms  of 
emphasis  and  absoluteness,  "Thou  art  the 
Christ/'  but  it  was  not  enough  to  satisfy  the  de- 
mand of  Jesus. 

" Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  Me?" 
"Yea,  Lord,  have  I  not  left  all  and  followed 
Thee?"  "Simon,  it  is  not  enough.  Feed  My 
lambs."  He  saith  again  the  second  time,  "  Simon, 
son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  Me  ? "  "  Yea,  Lord, 
did  I  not  say  at  the  Last  Supper  that  I  will  lay 
down  my  life  for  Thy  sake  ?  "  Jesus  saith  again, 


160     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

"Feed  My  sheep."  Again,  the  third  time, 
"  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  Me  ?  "  "  Yea, 
Lord,  was  I  not  the  first  of  Thy  disciples  to  de- 
clare the  divineness  of  Thy  being ?"  "It  is  not 
enough.  Simon,  feed  My  sheep.  Simon,  you 
love  Me  when  you  love  men." 

Council  after  council  of  the  Church  has  re- 
echoed the  words  of  Peter  at  Csesarea  Philippi, 
"  Thou  art  the  Christ."  Creed  upon  creed,  con- 
fession upon  confession  have  been  composed  to 
give  the  most  exalted  estimate  of  Christ.  It  is  a 
fine  thing,  this  intellectual  estimate  of  the  person 
of  Jesus.  That  person  gives  the  human  mind  an 
exhaustless  theme  for  contemplation.  But  these 
things  do  not  answer  the  imperative  demand. 
Nicodemus  said,  "  Thou  art  from  God,"  but  he 
did  not  join  the  Twelve. 

The  love  of  truth  is  fine,  and  beautiful  the 
appreciation  of  the  glorious  words  which  fell 
from  Jesus'  lips.  But  it  does  not  satisfy  the  claim 
of  Jesus  on  our  human  love. 

The  Christian  Church  has  represented  Jesus 
as  having  a  wonderful  power  over  nature,  and 
has  stood  in  awe  before  the  miraculous,  but  to 
adore  in  wonder  does  not  answer  the  test  of 
love. 

Again,  the  mystic  mind  may  draw  itself  away 
within  the  shades  of  contemplation  to  commune 
with  Christ,  and  lose  itself  in  spiritual  ecstasy.  It 
is  not  enough.  Men  may  well  go  to  Keswick, 


The  Measure  of  Religious  Affection     161 

but  they  must  not  remain  there.  They  may  well 
follow  Jesus  up  the  mountainside,  but  they  must 
also  follow  Him  when  He  goes  down  upon  the 
plain  of  human  life  to  heal  men  of  their  diseases. 

Thus  the  human  soul  may  prostrate  itself  in 
every  form  of  human  worship  and  yet  not  give 
satisfaction  to  the  test  of  Christ,  and  it  may  be 
little  more  than  bowing  to  an  image.  All  these 
manifestations,  as  such,  were  constantly  repelled 
by  Jesus.  He  called  those  who  were  seeking 
signs  an  evil  and  adulterous  generation.  He 
said  He  would  have  mercy  and  not  sacrifice. 
Still  He  asks,  "  Lovest  thou  Me  ?  "  So  men  may 
enshrine  Christ  in  terms  exalting  Him  to  the 
throne  of  the  universe,  may  admire  His  tran- 
scendent truth,  may  stand  in  awe  before  His  ma- 
jestic, ineffable  presence,  and  yet  never  know,  in 
reality,  a  love  for  Christ. 

The  truth  is  larger  than  this.  They  may  even 
do  some  of  these  things  imperfectly  and  yet  meet 
His  all-important  demand.  I  was  called  to  at- 
tend a  funeral  service  a  little  while  ago.  The 
man  was  not  called  or  considered  a  Christian 
man.  He  had  been  filled  with  intellectual  doubts 
and  could  only  see  in  Christ  the  nature  of  a  hu- 
man being.  Somehow  he  had  not  been  able  to 
fit  himself  into  the  life  of  the  Church.  He  did 
not  believe  that  such  a  thing  as  a  miracle  had 
ever  happened.  I  know  what  men  thought  as  I 
mounted  the  pulpit  before  a  great  throng  of  his 


162     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

townsmen.  They  said,  "  What  can  the  minister 
say?" 

But  I  had  seen  more  of  him  than  they.  He 
had  opened  his  heart  to  me  one  day  as  we  quietly 
glided  along  over  the  canals  of  Venice.  I  had 
seen  the  tears  stream  down  his  face  at  the  Pas- 
sion Play  at  Ober-Ammergau.  I  had  seen  his 
heart  as  those  church  deacons  had  not  seen  it. 
The  man  had  a  heart  like  the  very  heart  of 
Christ.  He  was  full  of  self-sacrifice.  He  loved 
men.  He  had  wrought  for  men,  comforted  and 
uplifted,  fed  and  clothed  them  all  his  life.  He 
was  a  physician.  God  bless  them  and  make 
them  followers  of  the  Great  Physician.  I  love 
them  as  I  behold  them  bending  with  anxious 
solicitude  over  their  fellow  men. 

What  then  had  I  to  do,  as  I  stood  before  the 
form  of  this  agnostic  ?  My  task  was  simple ;  I 
simply  brought  him  face  to  face  with  the  final 
judgment :  "  And  the  King  shall  answer  and  say 
unto  them,  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  Inasmuch  as 
ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  My 
brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  Me."  This  man 
had  been  a  follower  of  Christ,  had  loved  Him  all 
his  life — in  other  men. 

Yes,  humanity  without  religion  would  be  in- 
finitely better  than  religion  without  humanity. 
The  real  ground  of  love  is  goodness.  We  could 
not  love  such  a  quality  as  omnipotence.  The 
real  reason  we  love  Christ  is  for  all  that  His  cross 


The  Measure  of  Religious  Affection     163 

represents  to  us.  He  reveals  God's  pity  and  care 
for  men.  He  reveals  God's  suffering  for  His 
children.  We  love  Him  because  He  so  loved 
men  that  He  could  say  of  those  who  put  Him  to 
a  cruel  death,  "  Father,  forgive  them."  We  love 
Him  because  He  was  His  own  good  Samaritan. 
We  love  Him  for  forgiving  that  sinful  woman 
whom  religious  men  were  ready  to  stone.  We 
love  the  Master  because  He  first  loved  us  and 
men. 

If  this  be  a  true  and  real  affection,  it  will  make 
us  like  Him.  For  we  become  like  what  we  love. 
If  we  thus  love  Christ  because  He  was  forgiving 
we  shall  be  forgiving.  If  we  love  Him  because 
He  so  loved  men,  we  shall  love  them  and  give 
ourselves  for  them. 

Let  us  be  honest  with  ourselves.  You  and  I 
know  men  and  women  who  deny  our  creeds  (I 
am  sorry  that  they  do),  who  cannot  worship  with 
us  (I  wish  they  could),  who  do  not  believe  a 
single  miracle,  who  do  not  reverence  our  Bible, 
and  cannot  repeat  our  confessions  or  use  our 
terms.  Yet,  construed  by  the  great  demand  of 
Jesus,  they  are  followers  of  Him  and  love  Him. 

I  wish  I  could  make  such  men  and  women, 
many  of  whom  are  noble  souls,  lose  sight  of  our 
faltering  preachers,  our  fallible  churches,  forget 
our  theoretical  terms  which  only  confuse  them, 
and  behold  the  Christ  whom  they  really  follow 
in  our  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  And  again,  I  wish 


164     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

that  I  could  make  some  very  religious  men  and 
women  see  that,  because  they  are  unloving,  they 
are  far  away  from  the  Christ  whom  they  acclaim. 

The  real  love  of  Christ  is  the  love  of  truth  in 
one  who  was  true,  the  love  of  purity  in  one  whose 
heart  saw  the  vision  of  God  because  it  was  so 
pure,  the  love  of  compassion  in  a  tender  heart 
which  beat  for  every  human  woe,  the  love  of 
goodness  in  one  supremely  good,  of  love  in  one 
supremely  loving.  To  love  thus  is  to  love  Christ. 

He  asks  of  us,  "  Lovest  thou  Me  ?  "  We  might 
answer,  "Lord,  do  we  not  worship  Thee?  Do 
we  not  praise  Thee  in  hymns  ?  Do  we  not  con- 
fess Thee  before  men  ?  "  His  answer  would  be, 
"  If  ye  love  Me  keep  My  commandment."  What 
is  His  commandment ?  "A  new  commandment 
I  give  unto  you,  that  ye  love  one  another  as  I 
have  loved  you." 

Yes,  Christ  is  here,  but  not  in  our  hymns,  not 
in  this  Bible,  not  in  these  confessions.  He  is 
here  in  the  man  beside  you.  He  is  there  in 
those  outside  our  doors  who  are  His  sheep  and 
have  no  shepherd.  Christ  will  be  with  you  to- 
morrow. Where?  In  your  clerk  in  the  office, 
in  the  boy  who  calls  to  bring  you  your  daily 
food,  in  the  servant  in  your  home,  in  your  asso- 
ciates in  business,  in  the  man  who  runs  the 
motor  or  collects  your  fare  upon  the  street-car. 
Let  the  peals  of  the  organ  cease,  let  the  voice  of 
our  coronation  be  still,  let  the  preacher's  voice 


The  Measure  of  Religious  Affection     165 

be  hushed  and  let  him  sit  silently  with  you  while 
the  voice  of  Christ  reaches  our  very  heart.  "  Lov- 
est  thou  Me?"  "Do  you  love  one  another?" 
"  Do  the  wrongs  of  men  pain  your  heart?  "  "  Do 
their  sorrows  touch  you  deeply?"  "Do  you 
love  your  neighbour  as  yourself?"  "  Have  you 
a  tender  affection  for  men  in  their  sins  ?  " 

What  is  our  religion  ?  It  is  not  a  set  of  doc- 
trines. It  is  a  great  overwhelming  feeling.  It 
is  a  profound  emotion  of  love  leading  us  to  a 
great  surrender  and  willing  sacrifice.  Do  not 
lose  your  emotional  nature.  You  had  a  great 
emotion  once.  You  expressed  it  to  her  who  sits 
beside  you.  You  were  moved  throughout  your 
whole  being.  Let  your  feeling  for  Christ  and 
for  mankind  be  like  that.  It  would  do  great 
strong  men  good  if  they  should  break  down 
sometimes  as  my  great  strong  friend  did  at  the 
Passion  Play.  It  would  do  them  good  if  oftener 
they  wept  the  tears  of  children.  Religion  at  its 
best  is  a  great  affection.  Its  supreme  object  is 
mankind,  in  Christ. 

The  great  white  throne  is  set.  The  judge  is 
there.  The  lines  are  drawn.  They  divide.  How 
do  they  divide  ?  By  creeds  and  confessions,  by 
faiths  and  unfaiths,  by  triunities  and  trinities  ? 

"When  the  Son  of  Man  shall  come  in  His 
glory,  and  all  the  holy  angels  with  Him,  then 
shall  He  sit  upon  the  throne  of  His  glory :  And 
before  Him  shall  be  gathered  all  nations:  and 


166     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

He  shall  separate  them  one  from  another,  as  a 
shepherd  divideth  his  sheep  from  the  goats : 
And  He  shall  set  the  sheep  on  His  right  hand, 
but  the  goats  on  the  left.  Then  shall  the  King 
say  unto  them  on  His  right  hand,  Come,  ye  blest 
of  My  Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for 
you  from  the  foundation  of  the  world.  For  I 
was  an  hungered,  and  ye  gave  Me  meat :  I  was 
thirsty,  and  ye  gave  Me  drink :  I  was  a  stran- 
ger, and  ye  took  Me  in :  naked,  and  ye  clothed 
Me :  I  was  sick,  and  ye  visited  Me :  I  was  in 
prison,  and  ye  came  unto  Me.  Then  shall  the 
righteous  answer  Him,  saying,  Lord,  when  saw 
we  Thee  an  hungered,  and  fed  Thee :  or  thirsty, 
and  gave  Thee  drink?  When  saw  we  Thee  a 
stranger,  and  took  Thee  in :  or  naked,  and  clothed 
Thee  ?  Or  when  saw  we  Thee  sick,  or  in  prison, 
and  came  unto  Thee?  And  the  King  shall  an- 
swer and  say  unto  them,  Verily  I  say  unto  you, 
Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least 
of  these  My  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  Me. 

"  Then  shall  He  say  also  unto  them  on  the 
left  hand,  Depart  from  Me,  ye  cursed,  into  ever- 
lasting fire,  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels. 
For  I  was  an  hungered,  and  ye  gave  Me  no 
meat :  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  Me  no  drink  : 
I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  Me  not  in :  naked, 
and  ye  clothed  Me  not :  sick,  and  in  prison,  and 
ye  visited  Me  not.  Then  shall  they  also  answer 
Him,  saying,  Lord,  when  saw  we  Thee  an  hun- 


The  Measure  of  Religious  Affection     167 

gered,  or  athirst,  or  a  stranger,  or  naked,  or  sick, 
or  in  prison,  and  did  not  minister  unto  Thee? 
Then  shall  He  answer  them,  saying,  Verily  I  say 
unto  you,  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  not  to  one  of 
the  least  of  these,  ye  did  it  not  to  Me.  And  these 
shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punishment :  but 
the  righteous  into  life  eternal." 

Listen  again,  "  Whosoever  causeth  one  of  these 
little  ones  to  stumble,  it  were  better  for  him  that 
a  millstone  were  hanged  about  his  neck  and  he 
were  cast  into  the  depths  of  the  sea." 

Two  thousand  years  ago  Jesus  stood  in  the 
midst  of  those  who  did  Him  homage  and  wept 
His  bitterest  tears.  To-day,  over  every  human 
heart  that  steels  itself  in  icy  coldness,  that  does 
not  respond  with  a  great  human  love  for  man- 
kind, the  Saviour  weeps  and  the  Saviour's  heart 
is  pierced. 

What  is  to-day  the  supreme  need  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  ?  Some  say  an  old  theology.  Others 
say  a  new  one.  And  I  suppose  it  needs  both. 
But  men  by  it  need  to  say,  with  arms  outstretched 
to  all  men,  Ye  are  ours,  and  we  are  yours,  be- 
cause we  both  are  Christ's.  The  supreme  need 
is  a  great  vibrating,  pulsating  passion  for  man- 
kind, both  soul  and  body.  Jesus  says  to  His 
Church  to-day  as  He  said  to  Peter,  "  Lovest  thou 
Me  ?  "  "  Feed  My  sheep." 


XIII 

THE  UPWARD  LOOK  AND  THE  DOWN- 
WARD REACH 

IN  the  world  of  science  we  hear  much  about 
the  law  known  as  "  the  survival  of  the  fit- 
test." We  have  been  discovering  the  wide 
operation  of  this  law.  Meanwhile,  however,  in 
the  moral  life  of  the  race,  especially  in  our  great 
modern  social  movements,  we  have  rediscovered 
another  law,  which  was  put  into  language  twenty 
centuries  ago  by  one  who  had  caught  the  spirit 
of  his  Lord. 

"  We  then  that  are  strong  ought  to  bear  the 
infirmities  of  the  weak,  and  not  to  please  our- 
selves, for  even  Christ  pleased  not  Himself." 

As  I  stood  one  day  looking  at  the  original  of 
Hofmann's  famous  picture  of  the  Master  and  the 
Sinful  Woman,  two  things  impressed  me  in  the 
study  of  it.  One  was  the  countenance  of  Jesus 
which,  while  it  was  turned  with  the  look  of 
severity,  mingled  with  patience,  towards  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees,  also  seemed  peculiarly, 
at  the  same  time,  to  be  looking  upward.  The 
other  was  the  attitude  of  the  right  hand  of  Jesus 
which  was  stretched  down  towards  the  sinful 
woman  on  her  knees.  The  upward  look  and  the 

downward  reach. 

1 68 


The  Upward  Look  and  Downward  Reach  169 

One  of  the  great  beauties  of  nature  is  her 
mingling  of  things  unlike  each  other,  each  serv- 
ing the  other's  needs.  The  natural  order  is  not 
like  a  scientific  show-case  or  like  a  library  of  well- 
ordered  books.  This  universal  order,  since  the 
stars  sang  their  morning  song  together,  has  been 
the  blending  of  a  multitude  of  things  which,  in 
our  human  knowledge  of  them,  we  have  set  apart. 

Nature  consists  thus  of  unity  in  diversity. 
Her  divided  and  subdivided  kingdoms  exist  only 
in  the  thought  of  man.  She  is  not  like  our 
human  life,  marked  off  into  its  political  states 
with  their  boundaries  and  barriers.  Her  various 
systems  pervade  and  penetrate  each  other.  They 
live  upon  and  by  one  another. 

In  our  human  order  also,  when  we  live  its 
freest  and  most  natural  life,  we  do  not  gather  our- 
selves together  so  much  upon  the  basis  of  simi- 
larity as  that  of  unlikeness.  The  family  is  the 
highest  type  of  our  mutual  human  life  and  it  is  a 
bringing  together  of  the  unlike  and  opposite. 
The  gentle  woman  and  the  strong  man,  the  little 
child  and  the  great  father,  the  brother  and  the 
sister.  There  are  striking  likenesses  of  feature 
and  of  temperament,  but  these  are  no  more 
marked  than  the  elements  of  unlikeness. 

When,  however,  we  pass  out  from  this  natural 
social  order  of  God  into  the  realm  of  our  artificial 
human  associations,  we  find  that  this  divine  law 
is  everywhere  perverted  and  repressed.  In  God's 


l  jo     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

order  it  is  the  unity  of  unlikeness.  Man's  dis- 
position is  to  bring  things  together  by  similari- 
ties. The  one  completes  the  defect  by  some 
compensation  and  gives  a  real  and  final  unity. 
The  other  takes  one  small  portion,  multiplies  it 
by  itself  and  issues  in  a  system  of  inharmonious 
exaggerations,  so  that  to  him  that  hath  much 
more  is  given  and  from  him  that  hath  not  is 
taken  away  even  that  which  he  hath. 

Thus  it  has  been  the  tendency  of  our  human 
blindness  and  error  to  unite  the  like  and  to  sep- 
arate the  unlike.  We  have  largely  ordered  the 
world  not  in  complementary  groups,  but  by  a 
cold  analysis  into  classes,  so  that  each  man,  in- 
stead of  living  in  the  world,  lives  within  his  own 
little  class.  Here  he  finds  his  own  ways  of  doing 
things  repeated,  his  particular  tastes  are  met,  the 
limited  judgments  of  his  little  mind  are  con- 
formed to,  and  his  words  stand  for  wisdom 
among  those  who  speak  like  him. 

Thus  our  human  society  has  been  largely 
formed  after  the  classification  of  a  schoolhouse 
rather  than  like  the  organism  of  a  family.  Test 
this  by  the  population  of  the  city  in  which  we 
live,  by  its  rigid  segregation  of  race  and  station. 
Witness  it  in  our  commercial  life,  with  the  barons 
of  industry  about  the  hotel  table,  while  the  sons 
of  toil  meet  in  their  dingy  hall.  Apply  it  to  the 
professions,  to  the  calling  of  the  ministry,  and 
note  how  we  classify  men,  and  to  our  churches  in 


The  Upward  Look  and  Downward  Reach  171* 

which  we  often  say,  "  Our  church  does  not  have 
that  class  of  people." 

It  is  true  that  this  principle  is  not  altogether 
bad.  It  would  not  be  bad  at  all,  if  it  were  not 
carried  too  far.  Our  deep  mutual  sympathies 
uplift  us  in  common  and  invigorate  the  will  and 
purpose.  The  trouble  is  that,  in  proceeding 
along  the  lines  of  these  classifications,  we  have 
depreciated  the  finer  graces  of  human  life  and 
have  impaired  its  affections,  so  that  everywhere 
upon  the  face  of  its  sympathy  is  written  the  com- 
mercial title  "  limited." 

In  it  there  is  more  of  self-will  than  of  pity, 
more  of  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  than 
of  Jesus'  larger  law  by  which  the  strong  are  to 
sustain  the  weak.  We  are  the  schoolroom  with 
its  childish  method,  which  never  should  have 
been  its  method,  of  the  boy  at  the  head  of  the 
class  and  the  other  at  the  foot,  when  perhaps  the 
first  ought  to  have  been  last  and  the  last  first. 
Our  human  order  is  too  much  like  this  and  too 
little  like  the  home. 

Our  tendency  has  gone  all  too  far  to  find  our 
equals  and  to  associate  with  them  ;  the  weak 
with  the  weak,  the  strong  with  the  strong,  rich 
with  rich,  poor  with  poor,  the  cultured  with  the 
cultured,  the  uncultured  with  the  uncultured,  the 
wise  together  with  the  wise  and  the  ignorant 
with  the  ignorant. 

We  not  only  do  this,  but  with  a  still  lower  aim 


172     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

and  motive,  we  like  to  talk  with  those  who  think 
as  we  do  and  who  applaud  our  knowledge.  We 
read  the  books  that  meet  our  tastes  or  justify  our 
opinions  and  confirm  our  ideas  and  conceptions. 
We  go  to  hear  the  preachers  who  echo  our  own 
notions  and  the  tenor  of  whose  words  is  to  con- 
firm us  in  our  self-satisfaction. 

We  resent  those  who  stand  over  in  contrast  to 
us  and  again  and  again  we  assume  the  contemp- 
tuous attitude  of  the  Scribes,  "  These  people  that 
know  not  the  law  which  I  know  are  accursed/' 

Thus  we  fall  into  a  dwarfing  egoism.  We  be- 
come in  our  self-satisfaction  very  near  to  the 
classic  man  who  talked  to  himself,  as  he  said, 
first  because  he  liked  to  talk  to  a  sensible  man, 
and  second  because  he  liked  to  hear  a  sensible 
man  talk.  Our  little  narrow  world  reflects  our 
little  narrow  self,  or  at  best  the  class  in  which  we 
have  been  disposed. 

We  have  thus  destroyed  the  family  idea  of  na- 
ture and  have  substituted  for  it  a  well-ordered 
set  of  classes  with  the  poor  dullards  to  keep 
misery  company,  while  the  brilliant  shine  in  their 
mutually  reflected  splendour  and  become,  un- 
known to  themselves,  a  society  for  mutual  ad- 
miration. The  result  is  that  life  has  fallen  largely 
into  the  order  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest ;  to  him 
that  hath  is  given,  from  him  that  hath  not  is 
taken  away ;  the  weak  become  weaker  and  the 
strong  stronger. 


The  Upward  Look  and  Downward  Reach  173 

The  great  commotion  in  the  social  order  of 
our  day  and  generation  is  the  effort  to  change 
this  current  into  the  splendid  order  of  democracy. 

Nothing  opposes  this  classification  but  religion. 
Knowledge  does  not  do  it,  because  we  classify 
ourselves  upon  the  basis  of  its  attainment. 
Morals  do  not  do  this  work,  because,  as  in  our 
churches,  we  have  sought  to  classify  ourselves 
upon  this  basis.  We  permit  our  personal  integ- 
rity to  dwarf  and  limit  our  human  sympathy  and 
even  a  falsely  so-called  religion  has  been  thus 
misused. 

The  one  serene  force  that  makes  for  the  new 
order  is  the  faith  of  Jesus,  which  has  been  put  in 
this  striking  language  by  His  apostle,  "  We  then 
that  are  strong  ought  to  bear  the  infirmities  of 
the  weak,  and  not  to  please  ourselves."  In  these 
words  we  have  what  we  might  call  the  law 
of  the  attraction  of  the  dissimilar.  The  two 
Greek  words  used  might  be  translated  "  mighty  " 
and  "  decrepit."  The  purpose  of  Jesus  was  to 
change  the  order  of  civilization  into  the  similitude 
of  the  family.  This  was  the  meaning  of  the  new 
word  which  He  gave  for  God,  the  word  Father. 

This,  however,  has  not  been  the  way  in  which 
discipleship  to  Him,  as  revealed  in  the  Church, 
has  been  carried  out.  His  Church  has  followed 
too  far  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  He 
maintained  that  the  experience  of  discipleship 
with  Him  should  mean  the  vanishing  of  the 


174     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

burning  glow  of  self-reliance  into  the  softer  light 
of  trust.  He  opens  before  us  two  worlds,  the 
world  above  us  with  its  light  shining  upon  the 
world  beneath  us.  We  are,  as  it  were,  sus- 
pended between  them  with  a  higher  existence  to 
attain  and  the  lower  existence  to  assist. 

In  Jesus,  aspiration  and  sympathy  meet  to- 
gether. These  are  the  two  attitudes  of  Christian 
discipleship,  the  attitudes  of  Jesus  in  Hofmann's 
famous  picture,  the  upward  look  and  the  down- 
ward reach.  We  should  have  both.  We  must 
understand  that  we  are  to  be  strong  in  admira- 
tion of  the  lofty  as  well  as  in  pity  for  the  lowly. 
Some  great  German  philosopher  is  said  to  have 
defined  religion  as  reverence  for  inferior  beings. 
It  is  certainly  one  of  the  results  of  true  religion. 

Each  attitude  must  be  maintained  and  neither 
yielded  to  the  other.  The  duty  of  Christians  is 
both  to  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  and  to 
keep  themselves  unspotted  from  the  world. 
They  must  keep  strong  themselves,  in  order  that 
they  may  become  the  strength  of  the  weak. 

It  is  too  bad  to  see  culture  without  service  and 
it  is  just  as  sad  to  witness  service  without  culture. 
Indeed  we  have  to-day,  in  our  great  social  move- 
ments, too  many  men  who  have  the  downward 
reach  without  the  upward  look,  and  they  are 
thus  blind  leaders  of  the  blind. 

To  evade  and  despise  the  knowledge  which  is 
greater  than  our  own,  the  vision  that  is  larger, 


The  Upward  Look  and  Downward  Reach  175 

the  aim  that  is  higher,  may  be  as  bad  as  to  lose 
sympathy  and  tenderness.  To  stifle  aspiration 
is  as  harmful  as  to  repress  compassion  and  to 
dwarf  our  faith  as  to  lose  our  sympathetic  touch. 
We  cannot  feed  the  fires  of  human  life  from  its 
own  fuel 

The  downward  reach  may  mean  the  depression 
of  hope,  without  the  upward  look.  Sympathy 
with  human  needs  is  vain  without  communion 
with  divine  grace.  He  who  would  bring  the 
light  of  the  world  to  the  darkness  of  man  must 
possess  the  riches  of  God  as  well  as  witness  the 
poverty  of  the  race.  There  can  be  no  nether 
springs  of  service  without  the  upper  springs  of 
inspiration.  None  of  us  can  uplift  even  himself, 
how  much  less  can  he  uplift  others.  Thus  every 
one  of  us  stands  between  the  appeal  of  the  things 
above  him  and  of  those  beneath  him,  between  the 
human  reality  and  the  divine  ideal,  between  the 
discipline  of  duty  and  the  peace  of  faith. 

The  great  Gentile  apostle  declared  that  every 
man  in  Christ  was  a  "  new  creature."  Most  of 
us  have  gone  only  a  little  way.  We  are  still 
followers  of  temperament ;  the  slaves  of  taste  and 
tendency,  the  victims  of  environment.  If  we 
have  tried  to  do  the  one  duty,  we  have  left  the 
other  undone,  have  sought  to  gain  the  upward 
look  but  have  failed  to  witness  the  infinite  vision, 
because  our  horizon  is  bounded  by  our  own  nar- 
row sympathies  and  our  grudging  self-denial. 


176     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

Such  men  were  the  Pharisees  of  Jesus'  day. 
They  could  not  see  His  face  because  its  light 
radiated  over  the  expanse  of  too  large  a  human 
world.  Then  on  the  other  hand  there  was  the 
opposite  class,  the  Zealots,  the  Essenes,  busy  with 
their  plans  for  the  salvation  of  the  chosen  people, 
so  lost  in  them,  that  they  did  not  witness  the 
kingdom  though  it  stood  in  their  very  midst. 

It  is  sad  to  see  men  and  women  in  religion 
trying  to  save  themselves  and  forgetting  all  the 
rest  of  the  world  except  perhaps  their  own 
charmed  and  chosen  circle.  It  is  just  as  sad  to 
find  men  trying  to  save  the  world  without  any 
vision  beyond  their  own  horizon  and  with  no 
strength  stronger  than  their  own. 

Let  us  look  again  at  the  picture  of  the  Master. 
His  picture  is  always  thus,  with  the  upward  look 
and  the  downward  reach.  Sometimes  He  com- 
munes with  the  best  beloved  disciple,  the  saintly 
John,  at  other  times  with  the  multitude.  He 
passes  from  the  presence  of  God  in  Gethsemane 
to  the  companionship  of  Judas.  He  is  always 
blending  knowledge  and  love,  aspiration  and 
sympathy,  truth  and  love,  strength  and  duty, 
righteousness  and  pity,  virtue  and  charity,  cul- 
ture and  service.  The  very  last  moments  on  the 
Cross  bear  witness  to  it.  "  Father,  into  Thy  hands 
I  commend  My  spirit."  There  was  the  upward 
look.  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do."  There  was  the  downward  reach. 


The  Upward  Look  and  Downward  Reach  177 

"  And  not  to  please  ourselves. "  Ah,  but  that 
is  what  we  do.  We  intend  to  please  ourselves. 
God's  law  for  us  is  that  of  an  affectionate,  sym- 
pathetic conformity  to  our  human  environment. 
We  constantly  transgress  it  and  try  to  conform 
our  human  environment  to  meet  our  tastes,  to 
suit  our  tempers,  to  minister  to  our  own  dis- 
torted selfish  desires.  God  meant  that  our 
environment  should  embrace  humanity.  We 
have  narrowed  it  down  to  our  own  little  group. 

"Even  Christ  pleased  not  Himself."  "We 
then  that  are  strong  should  bear  the  infirmities  of 
them  that  are  weak."  "  They  that  are  strong  "  ; 
there  is  the  upward  look.  "  The  infirmities  o) 
the  weak  "  ;  there  is  the  downward  reach. 

The  best  of  us,  in  our  attitude  towards  human 
life,  are  very  far  from  this  picture  of  the  Master. 
Our  vision  of  the  spirit  is  so  dim,  our  arm  of 
flesh  so  short  that  we  need  to  pray  with  Francis 
Ridley  Havergal  : 

"  Lord,  speak  to  me  that  I  may  speak 
In  living  echoes  of  Thy  tone. 

"  O  lead  me,  Lord,  that  I  may  lead 

The  wandering  and  the  wavering  feet, 

0  feed  me,  Lord,  that  I  may  feed 

The  hungering  ones  with  manna  sweet. 

"  O  strengthen  me,  that  while  I  stand, 

Firm  on  the  Rock  and  strong  in  Thee, 

1  may  stretch  out  a  loving  hand 

To  wrestlers  with  the  troubled  sea." 


178     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

One  of  the  great  pictures  of  the  world  is  that 
of  the  Transfiguration  by  Raphael,  in  the  Vatican 
at  Rome.  I  always  love  to  look  at  it  and  yet  I 
always  wish  that  I  might  place  another  beside  it 
which  I  would  entitle,  "  The  Next  Hour  of  the 
Day."  The  picture  which  I  would  place  there  in 
the  Vatican  beside  Raphael's  Transfiguration 
would  be  that  of  the  Master  who  has  just  come 
down  from  the  mountain  upon  the  plain  of 
human  life,  touching  the  poor  human  lunatic  and 
healing  him  of  his  disease.  Most  of  us  have  seen 
only  the  one  picture  of  Jesus  in  that  story  of  the 
Transfiguration.  We  have  seen  in  it  the  upward 
look.  In  the  other  picture,  we  should  have,  side 
by  side  with  it,  the  downward  reach. 


XIV 

THE  CULTURE  OF  THE  HOME 

WHETHER  or  not  this  be  the  right  mes- 
sage, there  is  need  for  some  message 
to  our  American  people  regarding  the 
home. 

I  shall  try  to  treat  the  subject  in  an  ideal  way, 
although,  holding  as  we  do  these  treasures  in 
earthen  vessels,  we  all  fall  short  of  our  ideals. 
So  much  the  more  reason  why,  fall  though  we 
may,  we  should  ever  be  looking  up  to  them  as 
our  guiding  stars. 

The  home  is  the  great  background  of  life. 
When  the  sight  of  life's  background  is  lost,  its 
foreground  has  no  meaning  and  intent.  All  life  is 
miserable  drudgery  unless  we  witness  its  divine 
eternal  meaning.  We  rise  only  by  looking  up- 
ward. We  know  only  by  looking  inward.  Life 
is  in  its  intent,  its  motive,  its  spirit,  not  in  the 
thing  we  are  doing  at  the  moment,  but  in  the 
guiding  star  in  the  East  of  some  ideal  we  are 
pursuing.  There  is  no  realm  of  human  life 
which  needs  to-day  to  have  cast  upon  it  the  sun- 
light of  a  lofty  idealism  more  than  the  family  and 
the  home. 

The  dearest  of  conceptions  and  the  finest 
179 


180     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

thoughts  of  life  are  associated  and  are  blended 
with  the  word  and  the  idea  of  "home."  Its 
origin  and  sanction  are  divine,  not  only  as 
ordained  by  the  authority  of  Scripture,  but  be- 
cause taken  at  its  highest  and  its  best  it  is  filled 
with  sacred  meaning  and  is  its  own  revelation. 
It  is  the  symbol  of  the  highest  and  the  holiest  in 
human  life. 

The  mind  and  heart  of  man,  in  reaching  out 
for  God,  in  their  effort  to  give  the  finest  and  the 
ultimate  expression  to  our  conception  of  the  in- 
finite, have  taken  the  synonym  of  Jesus,  the 
word  "  Father."  In  our  ideal  for  the  human 
race,  the  brotherhood  of  all  mankind,  we  have 
united  on  the  home  as  the  highest  and  the  final 
expression  of  our  humanity. 

When  the  Eternal  Father,  in  the  fullness  of 
His  goodness  and  His  glory,  was  to  make  Him- 
self known  fully  among  men,  He  did  it  in  a  very 
sweet  and  simple  way.  He  found  first  a  good 
and  pure  and  holy  woman.  The  Incarnation 
was  the  supreme  investiture  of  human  life  with 
its  divine  light,  and  it  began  in  the  earliest  mo- 
ments of  the  prophetic  home  of  Nazareth  and 
sanctified  maternity  with  all  its  holy  meaning. 
The  first  mark  of  the  Incarnation  was  the  divine- 
ness  of  human  motherhood. 

Later  on,  in  the  dark  Middle  Ages,  when 
theologic  thought  presented  to  the  mind  and 
heart  of  man  a  God  who  was  a  monarch  and  was 


The  Culture  of  the  Home  181 

not  a  father,  in  natural  simplicity,  the  human 
hearts  of  men  sought  a  divine  and  holy  object 
which  they  could  love,  as  well  as  fear  and  wor- 
ship, and  so  they  put  upon  the  throne  of  their 
affection  the  Holy  Mother. 

When  Jesus  wanted  to  reveal  in  living  parable 
the  meaning  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  and  of 
God  He  stretched  forth  His  hands  upon  a  home, 
and  took  a  little  child  from  it  and  set  him  in  the 
midst  of  them. 

So,  also,  we  have  tried  to  think  the  better 
name  for  what  we  commonly  call  heaven,  and 
we  go  to  the  same  vocabulary  of  the  heart  and 
say,  "  Man  goeth  to  his  long  home."  The  great 
apostle,  in  one  of  his  noblest  utterances  of  faith, 
speaks  of  eternity  after  the  analogy  and  symbol 
of  the  home  as  the  "  house,  not  made  with  hands, 
eternal  in  the  heavens." 

When  the  Christian  Church  sought  to  make 
its  distinction  between  the  secular  and  sacred, 
and  to  determine  the  essential  sacraments,  it  em- 
braced marriage  in  them ;  and  it  is  one  of  the 
saddest  retrogressions  of  religion  that  we  have 
removed  it  from  its  holy  place. 

Thus,  in  our  human  effort  to  reach  up  through 
the  human  to  the  divine,  we  have  taken  as  the 
highest  point  of  meeting  the  human  home.  It 
is  not  possible  to  discern  the  line  between  heaven 
and  earth.  As  we  look  out  over  the  horizon 
and  ask  ourselves  where  the  sky  begins  we  find 


182     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

that  it  begins  at  the  very  earth.  The  one  comes 
down  and  touches  the  other.  The  divinity  of 
Christ  is  the  sovereign  revelation  of  the  humanity 
of  God. 

Witness  how  naturally  we  have  turned  to  it  in 
our  effort  to  reveal  and  to  express  the  true,  the 
beautiful,  the  good.  The  art  of  the  ages  has 
largely  spent  itself  upon  the  Holy  Mother  and  the 
Holy  Child.  As  we  pass  through  the  galleries 
of  the  Old  World,  we  linger  the  longest  before 
Murillo  and  Raphael  and  a  multitude  of  others, 
who,  in  their  effort  to  picture  the  divine  in  the 
human,  have  given  us  these  symbols  of  the  abid- 
ing-place of  time. 

While  the  poet  has  inspired  us  with  truth,  with 
patriotism,  with  righteousness,  his  sonnets  have 
been  mainly  of  that  human  love  which  prophesies 
the  family  and  home. 

Not  long  ago  there  came  to  me  a  book  from 
its  author,  and  before  I  opened  its  pages  I  read 
its  title,  "The  Dearest  Spot  on  Earth."  How 
immediately  and  instinctively  I  knew  that  it  was 
a  book  about  the  home  ! 

Is  it  not  because  within  its  sacred  walls  we  find 
our  highest  and  our  largest  opportunity  for  self- 
expression  ?  Do  we  not  there  best  interpret  the 
teaching  of  the  Master,  that  we  gain  by  losing, 
that  he  is  highest  who  serveth  most  ?  It  is  there 
that  we  find  the  finest  chance  for  sympathy,  for 
self-denial,  for  self-sacrifice.  The  finest  expres- 


The  Culture  of  the  Home  183 

sion  of  religion  is  the  religion  of  the  fireside.  It 
may  seem  strange  to  say  it,  but,  as  a  religious 
institution,  the  Church  ought  to  be  secondary  to 
the  home  and  never  a  religious  substitute  for  it. 

During  the  earlier  years  of  every  little  human 
life,  the  father  and  the  mother  are  God  to  the 
child.  "I  do  not  need  to  say  my  prayers  to- 
night/' said  a  little  girl,  "  because  father  is  here 
with  me."  I  remember  once  asking  a  little  child 
in  one  of  my  classes,  "  Ought  we  to  love  God 
more  than  father  and  mother  ?  "  "  Yes,"  he  said, 
"  we  ought  to,  but  we  cannot."  Thus  out  of  the 
mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings  God  has  ordained 
strength.  Again  and  again  the  little  child  may 
lead  us. 

The  order  of  religion  is  always  this,  first  the 
natural,  then  the  spiritual.  It  was  a  sad  and  a 
false  teaching  when  men  were  taught  that  the 
sacred  and  divine  must  be  gained  by  the  sup- 
pression of  the  natural  and  human.  We  can 
only  pass  up  into  the  realm  of  the  divine  through 
that  which  is  divinely  human. 

Ours  is  a  sad  lot  if  we  have  allowed  the  home 
to  become  incidental  in  our  life,  if  there  we  do 
not  find  the  unfailing  shelter,  the  great  strong- 
hold, the  very  source  and  impulse  of  all  our  liv- 
ing. The  saddest  thing  in  this  world  is  a  broken, 
ruined  home  where  love  has  been  turned  into 
hatred,  patience  into  petulance,  self-sacrifice  into 
selfishness. 


184     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

There  are  a  multitude  of  men  and  women  who 
have  allowed  themselves  to  grow  away  from  the 
home,  to  whom  it  has  lost  its  meaning  in  the 
stress  of  common  daily  life.  The  performance 
of  its  duties  has  crowded  out  its  sweetness  and 
its  light,  and  while  human  life  has  gained  in  its 
intensity  and  movement,  it  has  lost  in  depth  and 
grace. 

Many  men  and  women  of  our  day  have  lost 
this  deeper  sense  of  need,  and  as  life's  obliga- 
tions have  increased,  as  its  circle  has  widened, 
their  need  of  holy  preparation  for  those  needs 
is  forgotten,  and  they  substitute  the  vague  cir- 
cumference of  life  for  its  sacred  altar  at  the 
centre. 

Oftentimes  the  human  duties  are  performed 
but  the  human  graces  are  not  gained  and  cul- 
tured. Such  lives  know  not  those  quiet  hours 
and  places  in  which  the  symmetry  of  life  is 
gained,  so  that  its  length  and  height  and  breadth 
and  depth  are  equal. 

Such  men  and  women  have  no  hours  for  the 
inner  motives  of  the  heart.  They  have  no  silent 
times ;  no  hours  of  withdrawal  from  the  life  of 
business  or  of  toil ;  no  still  small  voices  to 
strengthen  and  to  calm.  The  things  of  the 
material  life,  its  losses  and  its  gains,  never  re- 
cede into  their  proper  background.  They  learn 
not  to  rejoice  in  the  more  costly  treasures  of  the 
mind  and  heart.  They  do  not  approach  life 


The  Culture  of  the  Home  185 

from  within.  It  has  no  guiding  impulse.  Yea, 
even  in  the  home  itself,  its  own  cares  and  duties 
are  often  permitted  to  crowd  out  its  graces  and 
its  beauties.  This  is  a  sad  mistake. 

Such  men  and  women  fulfill  the  sad  prophecy 
of  Wordsworth's  ode:  The  heaven  that  lay 
about  them  in  their  infancy  is  lost.  The  shades 
of  prison  house  have  closed.  The  deepest  and 
the  sweetest  things  of  life  are  left  to  die  away  and 
fade  into  the  light  of  common  day.  The  first  af- 
fections, the  fountain  light  of  all  our  day,  the 
master  light  of  all  our  seeing,  no  longer  uphold 
us,  cherish  or  have  power  to  make  our  noisy 
years  seem  moments  in  the  being  of  the  eternal 
silence. 

Witness  the  meaning  of  the  home.  From  its 
earliest  prophetic  beginnings,  the  marriage  is  be- 
gun in  faith,  in  confidence,  in  unselfishness,  in  de- 
votion. The  vocabulary  of  human  beauty  is  ex- 
hausted in  its  holy  service  with  its  words,  love, 
comfort,  honour,  serve,  keep  in  sickness  and  in 
health,  for  better,  for  worse,  for  richer,  for  poorer. 
Into  it  is  gathered  up  the  myrrh  and  frankin- 
cense of  life  and  laid  upon  the  altar  of  God. 

And  I  think  most  men  and  women  mean  it  all, 
intend  it,  feel  it,  but  by  and  by  the  strain  of  life 
comes,  the  great  tests  of  unselfishness.  How 
easy  then  it  is  to  let  sad  changes  steal  over  us. 
Those  beautiful  attentions  which  make  all  the 
world  love  a  lover  are  crowded  out  and  one  by 


1 86     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

one  are  lost.  The  attitudes  of  deference,  of  care, 
of  constancy,  like  the  frailest  and  most  beautiful 
of  flowers,  are  so  easily  destroyed  by  the  cold 
winds  of  time.  The  old  allurements,  the  thought- 
fulness  of  other  days,  become  but  shadowy  recol- 
lections of  all  those  first  affections. 

Never  cease  to  be  lovers.  Let  the  old  names 
never  be  blotted  out  of  the  book  of  life.  The  old 
language  should  be  abiding  and  eternal.  The 
vocabulary  of  love  should  never  sink  into  the  com- 
monplace of  every-day  speech. 

It  is  said  in  pleasantry,  when  it  ought  to  be 
said  in  sadness,  that  "  the  happiest  life  that  ever 
was  led  is  always  to  court  and  never  to  wed." 
It  is  also  a  sad  truth  that  "  the  lover  in  the  hus- 
band may  be  lost." 

Keep  in  sacred  beauty  all  the  anniversary  days. 
Stop  on  the  way  home  to  carry  a  few  flowers ; 
perhaps  more  inexpensive  than  of  old,  but  yet 
with  a  deeper  fragrance  and  a  meaning  all  their 
own.  Be  lovers  again  as  the  day  comes  that 
marks  the  first  confession.  Have  a  wedding  day 
every  year,  if  it  be  only  for  one  evening  hour. 

One  of  the  great  needs  of  the  home  to-day  is 
that  "the  other  days"  should  be  always  in  re- 
membrance by  conserving  the  habit  of  being  suf- 
ficient to  ourselves.  There  should  always  be 
many  times  when  the  third  person  is  a  crowd 
and  only  two  are  company.  If  love  was  blind, 
let  love  never  again  regain  the  sight  of  censure. 


The  Culture  of  the  Home  187 

"  Be  this  of  coming  days  the  pride, 
The  wife  is  greatly  dearer  than  the  bride.1' 

This  life  of  the  home  ought  to  be  a  growing 
order  in  its  meaning  and  its  beauty.  As  wife- 
hood  is  more  beautiful  than  the  earlier  relations 
of  prophecy  and  hope,  so  motherhood  is  still 
more  beautiful  than  wifehood. 

I  delight  to  look  at  the  Madonnas  of  Murillo 
with  their  celestial  colour.  I  also  love  to  think 
that  every  mother  may  be  a  holy  mother  if  she 
will.  This  life  of  ours  together  ought  to  be  one 
great,  abiding  and  unceasing  transfiguration  from 
holy  into  holier. 

And  then,  in  most  true  homes,  comes  child- 
hood with  all  its  hopes  and  prophecies.  How 
sadly  often,  however,  instead  of  bringing  joy,  of 
deepening  patience,  of  enlarging  self-sacrifice 
and  self-denial,  it  only  spoils  the  home.  God 
meant  that  children  should  be  the  great  devel- 
opers of  care  and  love.  We  often  think  and 
speak  about  the  training  of  our  children  but  do 
we  not  forget  that,  if  we  let  them,  they  are  train- 
ing us  in  the  finest  graces  of  the  human  life,  are 
drawing  out,  if  we  will  let  them,  both  our  sweet- 
est and  our  strongest  elements  of  character. 
That  it  is  not  so  is  generally  because  the  father 
and  the  mother  have  not  learned  to  live  together 
first  as  husband  and  wife.  They  have  divided 
their  functions  and  their  cares  instead  of  holding 
them  in  mutual  unity. 


l88     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

As  there  is  nothing  more  beautiful  than  the 
union  of  beauty  and  strength,  of  greatness  with 
simplicity,  of  power  with  tenderness,  so  there  is 
nothing  better  for  the  father  than  to  participate 
in  the  affections  of  the  mother  for  the  little  child. 

It  is  inspiring  to  see  great,  stern,  bold  Oliver 
Cromwell  on  the  battle-field  of  Worcester,  but  it 
is  finer  still  perhaps  to  see  that  great,  strong  man 
forsaking  the  affairs  of  state  to  sit  for  days  by 
the  bedside  of  his  little  child.  I  like  to  think  of 
Martin  Luther  as  he  writes  his  splendid  "  Ein 
feste  Burg,"  but  I  am  also  glad  that  such  a  man 
could  bring  together  strength  and  beauty,  pro- 
foundness and  simplicity,  so  that  he  could  also 
write,  "Away  in  the  manger,  no  crib  for  His 
bed." 

So,  to  strong  men,  who  are  husbands  and 
fathers,  I  would  say,  Never  let  the  time  come 
when  your  hearts  may  not  be  touched  with  the 
finger  of  a  little  child,  when  the  great  feelings 
and  emotions  of  human  love  and  passion  may 
not  have  their  way. 

One  of  the  saddest  things  of  human  life  is  the 
way  in  which 

"  Years  following  years  steal  something  every  day; 
Until  at  last  they  steal  us  from  ourselves  away." 

Then  there  is  the  home  itself.  The  true  culture 
of  life  is  really  that  which  binds  us  most  closely 


The  Culture  of  the  Home  189 

to  its  most  common  things.  Any  culture  that 
wends  its  pathway  away  from  the  home  is  false. 
The  sovereign  need  of  the  world  is  men  and 
women  who  both  profoundly  think  and  intensely 
feel,  who,  while  they  let  knowledge  grow  from 
more  to  more,  also  let  more  of  reverence  in  them 
dwell,  that  heart  and  mind  according  well  may 
make  one  music  as  before,  but  vaster.  A  true  cul- 
ture is  that  which  touches  every  point  of  human 
life  with  the  tendrils  of  human  sympathy. 

The  home  ought  to  be,  for  rich  or  poor,  for 
great  or  small,  as  my  friend  the  author  calls  it  in 
his  book,  "  the  dearest  spot  on  earth.'1  Beware 
then  when  the  club  begins  to  take  its  place  or 
when  the  ambitions  of  the  world  make  the  home 
seem  a  tame  and  useless  place,  when  you  are 
restless  within  its  walls.  Do  not  let  the  work  of 
the  profession,  the  duties  of  public  service,  or 
even  the  duties  of  the  church,  take  the  place  of 
the  home. 

In  order  that  this  should  be  so,  it  should  be 
kept  attractive.  To  make  it  beautiful  it  should 
have  the  most  that  the  purse  can  afford.  It 
should  be  a  means  of  culture.  How  often  I  long 
to  tear  the  diamonds  from  the  fingers  of  women 
that  I  might  sell  them  and  invest  their  material 
worth  in  the  beautifying  of  their  bare  and  care- 
less homes  !  I  have  sometimes  wished  for  a  new 
profession,  the  art  of  the  decoration  of  the  home, 
so  that  there  might  be  some  one  to  go  about  and 


I  go     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

teach  men  and  women  how  to  make  their  homes 
the  places  of  culture ;  to  teach  them  the  differ- 
ence between  good  and  worthless  books,  the  dif- 
ference between  a  costly  chromo  and  an  inexpen- 
sive work  of  art.  The  very  poorest  and  simplest 
of  homes  might  be  made  to  breathe  a  culture  of 
their  own. 

And  yet,  of  course,  after  all,  the  true  culture  of 
the  home  is  that  of  its  spirit.  The  best  way  of 
keeping  the  father,  the  wife,  the  boys  and  the 
girls  from  evil  is  to  make  the  home  attractive 
and  sufficient  to  itself.  A  man's  home  ought  to 
be  enough  for  him  so  that  if  everything  else  in 
the  world  were  taken  away  he  might  console 
himself  with  its  abiding  treasures. 

To  do  all  this  it  must  be  a  religious  home.  Its 
religion  must  be  natural  and  simple,  not  hard, 
but  joyous.  I  think  it  would  be  helpful  towards 
having  the  spirit  of  the  church  in  the  home  if  we 
thought  more  about  having  the  home  in  the 
church.  As  I  look  out  over  the  congregation, 
my  greatest  joy  is  to  see  the  home  in  the  church, 
the  family  pew  with  all  the  family  there. 

How  I  wish  the  husbands,  who  in  days  gone  by 
shadowed  the  one  they  loved,  were  always  by 
her  side,  would  be  lovers  still,  and  not  let  the 
wife  pursue  her  lonesome  way  by  day  and  night 
to  the  house  of  God !  A  husband  and  father 
came  to  me  the  other  day  and  it  was  encouraging 
and  hopeful  to  have  a  man  come  with  so  unusual 


The  Culture  of  the  Home  191 

a  trouble.  It  was  because  the  wife  and  mother 
was  unwilling  to  bring  the  home  into  the  church. 

It  is  far  easier  to  keep  the  true  religious  spirit 
in  the  home  if  in  some  simple  way  the  fireside  be 
made  an  altar  and  the  father  and  mother  God's 
priests.  I  am  glad  that  my  little  boy  regards  it 
as  a  punishment  if  he  must  be  sent  to  his  room 
for  some  wrong-doing  and  kept  there  during  the 
morning  hymn  and  prayer.  I  am  not  speaking 
now  of  a  severe  religious  observance  in  the  na- 
ture of  a  penance.  Each  parent  must  find  his 
own  way  of  doing  it,  but  it  may  be  done.  Per- 
haps it  need  only  be  the  singing  of  a  hymn  and 
the  repeating  together  of  the  Lord's  Prayer.  It 
may  be  the  gathering  of  the  family  together  for 
the  reading  of  a  Psalm,  not  a  long  and  impre- 
catory one,  but  perhaps  the  Twenty-third,  or,  in- 
deed, the  reading  of  a  poem.  When  there  are 
little  children  perhaps  it  is  best  to  sing  some 
children's  song  that  they  like.  Religion  in  the 
home  may  be  made  attractive  if  we  will  only  try 
to  find  the  way. 

One  thing  more  I  want  to  speak  of.  There  are 
many  burdens  to  be  borne  in  the  home.  It  calls 
for  much  of  patience,  of  fortitude,  of  courage.  It 
brings  toil  and  care  and  pain.  These  things  may 
be  used  in  either  of  two  ways.  They  may  be  the 
developers  of  sweetness  and  of  light,  or  they  may 
make  the  home  a  place  from  which  to  flee,  and 
not  a  place  of  help. 


192     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

In  the  first  place,  husbands  and  wives,  fathers 
and  mothers,  you  need  to  learn  to  bear  one 
another's  burdens.  But  you  also  need  to  remem- 
ber the  other  injunction  of  the  apostle,  that  every 
man  must  bear  his  own  burden.  Keep  some 
things  to  yourself.  There  are  some  burdens  of 
the  wife  which  the  husband  ought  not  to  know. 
On  the  other  hand,  let  not  the  husband,  at  the 
close  of  day,  pour  out  his  difficulties  of  the  day 
upon  the  tired  wife.  At  least  be  sure  to  choose 
the  right  and  proper  time.  Let  not  your  added 
burden  be  the  last  straw.  Never  break  the 
bruised  reed  or  quench  the  smoking  flax. 
Then,  too,  remember  the  third  message,  that  of 
the  psalmist,  that  there  are  other  burdens  which 
together  we  must  cast  upon  God. 

Above  all  things,  no  matter  what  comes,  no 
matter  how  tired,  no  matter  how  many  distrac- 
tions, keep  the  home  cheerful. 

So  you  see  that  this  home  life  may  tend  in 
either  way.  How  sadly  we  see  it  when,  as  the 
years  pass,  the  husband  and  the  wife  grow  away 
from  each  other  and  all  the  beauty  of  their  life  is 
gone,  even  though  they  may  still  perform  its 
duties  and  keep  its  outward  obligations  !  But  it 
may  grow  the  other  way,  the  wife  more  beautiful 
than  the  bride,  the  mother  more  an  object  of  af- 
fection and  of  worship  than  either,  the  husband 
with  more  reverence  and  care  than  the  lover,  the 
father  even  more  tender  than  the  husband,  and 


The  Culture  of  the  Home  193 

the  home  with  the  little  children  happier  than  all. 
This  is  the  way  it  ought  to  be.  If  it  is  not  so,  be- 
gin over  again.  Go  back  and  find  the  place  where 
the  paths  divided  and  bring  them  together  again. 

You  remember  that  in  the  days  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  when  men  might  be  hunted  for  their  lives, 
if  they  could  only  gain  the  portals  of  some  church 
or  temple,  when  once  across  its  threshold,  they 
were  safe  from  harm.  Not  even  the  monarch  of 
that  despotic  day  could  touch  them.  That  ought 
to  be  our  feeling  towards  our  home  ;  it  ought  to 
be  a  place  from  which  we  can  shut  out  every- 
thing that  harms  us  or  disturbs  us. 

I  am  not  pleading  for  a  narrow  selfishness. 
We  must  remember  other  homes  and  other  men 
and  women.  We  ought  to  think  also  of  the 
homeless,  many  of  whom  are  doing  such  splen- 
did service  in  the  world.  We  must  give  our- 
selves to  the  service  of  the  world.  We  ought 
sometimes  to  forsake  the  comfort  of  our  own 
firesides  to  serve  in  the  great  kingdom  of  heaven, 
of  social  life,  of  public  life,  of  business,  and  of 
culture,  but  some  men  whom  I  know  seem  to  be 
good  and  helpful  and  of  service  everywhere  ex- 
cept in  their  own  homes.  I  have  seen  those  who 
were  angels  without  and  devils  within.  They 
seemed  to  reserve  all  their  meanness  to  be  visited 
upon  the  wife  or  the  children.  They  could  be 
patient  and  strong  among  men  but  wretchedly 
weak  and  false  to  their  own. 


194     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

I  am  suggesting  a  well-balanced  life,  a  life 
that  is  strong  in  the  great  world  of  action  be- 
cause it  has  behind  it  a  great  centre  of  impulse. 
Let  the  circumference  of  life's  activity  and  service 
be  as  broad  as  it  may  but  keep  ever  returning 
to  its  centre  of  unfailing  sources.  Go  out  upon 
the  battle-field,  but  do  not  forget  to  have  some 
fortress  to  which  you  may  retire  for  comfort, 
strength,  and  rest,  for  the  larger  conflict  of 
to-morrow. 

This  message  is  needed  to-day.  The  home  as 
a  sacred  place  has  been  lost.  The  old  traditions 
have  gone.  Many  of  us  never  saw,  to  know  it, 
the  spot  where  we  were  born.  We  do  not  live 
out  our  days,  as  did  our  fathers,  within  some 
sacred  enclosure.  We  move  about  from  place 
to  place  and  year  to  year.  So  much  the  more 
need  of  learning  to  keep  the  true  spirit  of  the 
home. 

This  true  spirit  can  only  be  kept  by  an  unceas- 
ing return  to  early  days.  There  is  something 
really  beautiful  about  the  childishness  of  age. 
The  old  man  or  woman  forgets  the  things  of 
yesterday  but  remembers  the  incidents  of  child- 
hood. This  ought  to  be  typical  of  life.  It  should 
have  its  great  returning  tides  ever  sweeping 
backward  and  gathering  up  the  dearest  things 
of  all  the  past,  but  then  sweeping  onward  to  the 
better  and  the  larger  future. 

And    so,   husbands    and   wives,   fathers    and 


The  Culture  of  the  Home  195 

mothers,  if  necessary,  begin  it  all  over  again. 
Your  life  perhaps  has  become  hard  and  stern. 
Begin  again  and  let  patience  wait  on  toil  and 
care.  Let  reverence  be  the  handmaid  of  the 
passing  years.  Get  back  to  other  days.  Say 
it  over  again  to  yourself :  "  For  better  for  worse," 
"For  better  for  worse."  Let  them  creep  over 
you  again,  the  old  impulses,  the  old  ways,  the 
thoughts,  the  feelings,  all  the  touches  of  happi- 
ness and  love.  Learn  to  smooth  out  the  wrinkles 
of  time.  Mingle  again  the  poetry  with  the  prose 
of  life. 

Let  the  minister  join  your  hands  again  to- 
gether, and  what  God  hath  joined  together  let 
not  man,  let  not  yourselves,  put  asunder.  Real- 
ize the  prophecy  of  the  book's  title  and  make 
your  home  "  the  dearest  spot  on  earth." 


XV 
THE  UNKNOWN  VISITATION 

A  THOUGHTFUL   consideration   of  the 
character  of  Jesus  reveals  a  most  strik- 
ing and  significant  reconciling  of  appar- 
ent contradictions.     It  is  the  way  of  men  to  re- 
joice in  the  day  of  their  recognition  and  honour 
and  homage ;  to  despair  in  the  hour  of  disestab- 
lishment and  dishonour ;   to  be  calm,  peaceful 
and   joyous   in   the   presence   of  the  most  mo- 
mentary success ;   to  become  disheartened  and 
distressed  by  an  apparent  defeat. 

With  Jesus  the  process  seems  ever  to  be  re- 
versed. A  betrayed  captive  in  the  garden  of 
Gethsemane,  He  is  led  away  by  His  captors  in 
majestic  silence ;  a  prisoner  before  the  high 
priest,  He  hears  the  false  charges  of  perjured 
witnesses  without  a  word  of  protest ;  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Pilate  He  opens  not  His  lips  and  He 
has  no  remonstrance  for  a  miserable,  mocking 
Herod.  Throughout  those  last  days,  from  Geth- 
semane to  Golgotha,  He  seems  altogether  undis- 
turbed. His  only  utterances  upon  these  occa- 
sions are  of  a  sublime  confidence  and  hope. 
"  Thou  shalt  behold  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in 
power  and  glory,  upon  the  clouds  of  heaven." 

196 


The  Unknown  Visitation  197 

The  final  human  defeat  inspires  a  profound  faith 
and  a  sublime  courage. 

How  strangely  does  the  reverse  appear  in  the 
event  of  The  Triumphant  Entry0  He  is  enter- 
ing the  Holy  City,  hailed  as  a  King,  surrounded 
by  an  acclaiming  multitude,  amid  the  waving  of 
palms  and  with  the  shouts  of  triumph  in  His 
ears.  He  halts  the  great  procession  upon  the 
city's  heights,  stills  the  voices  of  the  throng,  and 
in  words  of  deepest  bitterness,  intermingled  with 
His  tears,  utters  the  despairing  cry  of  a  rejected 
prophet,  "If  thou  hadst  known  the  day  of  thy 
peace,  but  it  is  hidden  from  thine  eyes.  The 
days  shall  come  upon  thee,  when  thine  enemies 
shall  cast  up  a  bank  about  thee  and  compass 
thee  around  and  keep  thee  in  on  every  side  and 
shall  dash  thee  to  the  ground  and  thy  children 
within  thee  and  they  shall  not  leave  thee  one 
stone  upon  another." 

It  is  the  lament  of  a  prophet  over  the  nation 
and  the  age  that  has  blindly  rejected  a  prophet 
and  a  prophet's  truth.  Its  day  of  visitation  had 
come  and  gone  and  it  had  known  it  not. 

Beneath  lay  the  great  city  engrossed  in  its  lit- 
tle narrow  life,  busy  with  its  miserable  babblings, 
its  Scribes  and  Pharisees  religiously  washing 
their  cups  and  platters,  straightening  out  their 
phylacteries,  mumbling  their  prayers,  counting 
their  fastings,  repeating  their  laws  and  creeds, 
memorizing  the  traditions  of  their  forefathers,  all 


198     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

with  their  faces  set  rigidly  towards  a  dead  and 
dying  past,  propping  up  an  outworn  temple, 
patching  garments  that  are  rent  with  age,  and 
guarding  with  watchful  eye  an  outgrown  ritual. 
There  are  the  merchants  busily  hastening  back 
and  forth,  between  the  inner  court  where  they 
may  say  their  prayers  and  the  outer  where  they 
are  turning  the  sacrifice  of  God  into  an  unholy 
gain.  Pilate  sits  in  his  judgment  hall  thinking 
how  he  may  retain  a  wretched  Caesar's  friendship ; 
Herod  revels  in  his  unhallowed  pleasures.  And 
saddest  of  all,  the  great  throng  of  the  people,  in 
utter  blindness,  permit  priest  and  Pharisee  to 
rob  them,  and  choose  as  their  teachers  the  falsest 
of  Scribes.  While,  just  above  them,  their  greatest 
prophet,  their  true  high  priest,  their  sovereign 
King  stands  weeping  over  their  rejection  and 
they  behold  Him  not. 

We  have  here  but  an  instance  of  the  ceaseless 
repetitions  of  history.  The  world  has  again  and 
again  rejected  its  prophets.  Age  after  age  had 
this  nation  refused  to  listen  to  the  voices  of  the 
men  of  God.  It  had  left  an  Elijah  to  be  fed  by 
ravens  and  poor  widows.  How  like  unto  that  of 
Jesus  was  his  last  lament,  "  The  children  of  Is- 
rael have  forsaken  Thy  covenant,  thrown  down 
Thine  altars,  and  slain  Thy  prophets  with  the 
sword  ;  and  I,  even  I  only,  am  left ;  and  they 
seek  my  life  to  take  it  away."  An  Isaiah  follows 
in  a  succeeding  age,  He  utters  truths  that  to 


The  Unknown  Visitation 


199 


the  ages  are  immortal,  but  to  the  age  that  heard 
them  unknown  ;  to  a  people  whose  heart  was 
gross,  whose  ears  were  heavy  and  whose  eyes 
were  shut. 

A  Jeremiah  appears,  and  to  another  generation 
he  proposes  the  displacement  of  one  type  of  wor- 
ship by  the  substitution  of  a  loftier.  His  reward 
is  a  prison  cell.  His  priceless  record  is  cut  in 
pieces,  thrown  into  the  fire  upon  the  hearth  and 
consumed,  by  a  people  that  angrily  demands, 
"  Wherefore  dost  Thou  prophesy  these  undesir- 
able things  ?  "  Ezekiel  stirs  the  dry  bones  of  a 
later  Israel,  rebukes  and  upsets  the  teachings  of 
her  ignorant  leaders,  false  instructors  and  lying 
prophets.  He  too  is  rejected  by  his  generation 
for  the  proclaimers  of  falsehood  and  the  prophets 
of  a  dead  past.  The  history  of  Israel's  succeed- 
ing years  is  too  sadly  epitomized  in  the  lament 
of  its  fulfilling  prophet,  "O  Jerusalem,  Jerusa- 
lem, thou  that  killest  the  prophets  and  stonest 
them  that  are  sent  unto  thee." 

Finally  the  Prophet  of  prophets  has  appeared. 
From  the  very  beginning  Israel  has  had  no  place 
for  Him.  He  is  born  in  a  stable,  because  there 
was  no  room  for  Him  in  the  inn.  He  has  never 
known  a  home.  "  The  foxes  have  holes,  the 
birds  of  the  air  have  nests,  but  the  Son  of  Man 
has  no  place  to  lay  His  head/'  He  begins  the 
utterance  of  His  immortal  truth  at  His  home  in 
Nazareth,  He  is  indignantly  rejected,  a  prophet 


2oo     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

dishonoured  by  His  fellows.  He  is  cast  forth  out 
of  the  city,  "  led  to  the  brow  of  the  hill  whereon 
their  city  was  built  that  they  might  throw  Him 
down  headlong."  He  goes  thence  to  the  coun- 
try of  the  Gadarenes.  The  city  came  out  to 
meet  Him  "  and  when  they  saw  Him  they  be- 
sought Him  that  He  would  depart  out  of  their 
borders."  He  goes  back  to  His  own  again,  only 
to  meet  a  half-doubting  mother  and  a  household 
of  unbelieving  brethren.  He  casts  out  demons 
and  does  many  mighty  works.  If  so  it  must  be 
that  He  is  in  league  with  devils.  His  forerunner 
doubts  Him,  sends  an  embassy  from  His  prison 
cell  to  ask,  "  Art  Thou  He  that  should  come  or 
look  we  for  another?"  He  stands  in  their  pres- 
ence and  walks  in  their  midst,  a  standing  moral 
miracle.  They  shut  their  eyes  to  His  transcend- 
ent life  and  ask  for  a  petty,  trivial  "  sign."  He 
is  misunderstood  always  by  all,  except  a  little 
handful  of  the  humblest  followers,  and  even  of 
them,  again  and  again,  He  has  to  ask,  "  Are  ye 
also  without  understanding  ?  "  They  fall  asleep 
during  the  agony  of  Gethsemane.  They  flee  in 
the  face  of  danger.  One  moment  He  is  teach- 
ing the  beauty  of  humility  and  the  next  they  are 
quarrelling  over  which  of  them  is  greatest. 

Sometimes,  rejected  by  the  Church,  He  turns 
to  the  world.  But  His  connection  with  the 
Church  is  against  Him.  Because  His  face  is 
towards  Jerusalem  the  Samaritan  village  will  not 


The  Unknown  Visitation  2O1 

receive  Him.  He  must  go  another  way.  He 
turns  again,  on  the  road,  to  His  disciples  for  com- 
fort. They  shake  their  heads  and  tell  Him  that 
His  sayings  are  "hard  sayings."  Some  of  them 
turn  back  and  walk  no  more  with  Him. 

The  great  world  does  not  even  know  that  He 
exists.  The  Caesar  at  Rome  has  never  heard  of 
this  King  of  men.  No  annalist  records  His  name 
and  He  would  have  been  unknown  to  the  ages 
He  has  transformed  but  for  a  few  publicans  and 
fishermen  who  turned  historians.  A  learned  man 
is  writing  of  the  Church.  To  him  Jesus  is  either 
an  unknown  or  an  unworthy  name.  Herod  pre- 
fers the  company  of  a  Herodias  ;  Pilate  chooses 
Caesar's  friendship ;  Judas  takes  thirty  pieces  of 
silver ;  the  Church  of  God  and  the  people  select 
Barabbas,  in  place  of  Jesus  Christ.  And  the  Son 
of  God  goes  on  to  Calvary,  leaving  the  most  im- 
mortal truths  that  ever  fell  upon  the  ears  of  men 
in  the  sole  possession  of  a  few  Marys,  Johns  and 
Nicodemuses. 

But  history  does  not  cease  its  sad  repeatings 
here.  The  apostles  proclaim  the  truths  be- 
queathed to  them.  They  are  called  to  drink 
His  cup  and  share  His  baptism.  The  Galatian 
Church  repudiates  its  Paul.  The  brethren  for- 
sake him.  The  deacons  and  the  elders  have 
serious  doubts  as  to  whether  he  ought  to  be 
permitted  to  preach  to  the  churches  or  not.  He 
is  left  to  end  his  days  in  a  prison  cell  and  passes 


2O2     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

on  to  death  alone.  Each  age  goes  on  and  re- 
lentlessly repeats  the  doings  of  its  predecessor. 

In  the  name  of  religion  Galileo  must  recant 
the  truth,  and  because  the  church  so  dictates, 
shout  in  the  presence  of  the  congregation  that 
the  earth  is  flat  and  that  around  it  moves  the 
sun.  Savonarola,  in  the  name  of  God,  by  the 
vicar  of  God,  is  stretched  upon  the  gallows,  his 
body  burned  at  the  stake  and  his  ashes  cast 
upon  the  Arno.  Giordano  Bruno  declares  for 
the  Copernican  theory  of  the  universe  and  lights 
the  piazza  at  Rome  with  his  burning  body.  The 
golden-tongued  Chrysostom  is  subjected  to 
every  kind  of  indignity,  and  banished.  One 
after  the  other  Huss,  Cranmer,  Latimer  and 
Ridley  walk  to  the  stake.  John  Knox  goes  into 
exile,  John  Bunyan  lies  in  Bedford  jail,  Roger 
Williams  is  hunted  out  of  the  commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts.  The  fine  and  sensitive  soul  of 
Frederick  Robertson  is  pierced  through  and 
through.  Bushnell  stands  pilloried  before  a 
Connecticut  consociation,  Beecher  before  a 
Congregational  Council  and  Phillips  Brooks  be- 
fore a  synod  of  the  church. 

In  the  light  of  history,  both  Church  and 
world  stand  equally  condemned  for  their  false 
judgments  and  mistaken  verdicts.  By  divine 
right  of  kings  and  by  infallible  popes  and  by 
authoritative  councils,  has  the  truth  been  denied, 
its  prophets  put  to  shame  and  its  Saviour  cruci- 


The  Unknown  Visitation  203 

fied.  It  is  not  confined  to  any  age,  or  to  any 
sect  or  church.  Again  and  again  have  the 
Church's  prophets  become  the  Church's  martyrs 
and  at  the  Church's  hands. 

Thus  have  the  sowers  sown  their  seed  in 
rocky  places.  Prophet  after  prophet  has  arisen 
in  an  age  that  has  asserted,  "  We  will  not  have 
this  man  to  reign  over  us."  Thus  has  humanity 
either  entertained  its  angels  unawares  or  cast 
them  out-of-doors  into  the  silence  of  the  night 
Thus  has  the  Church  hugged  to  its  bosom 
ancient  tradition  and  outworn  method  saying, 
The  old  is  good,  that  which  has  been  is  better 
than  that  which  is  and  that  which  is  to  be. 
Blind  peoples  have  gone  on  choosing  blind 
leaders  of  the  blind,  "and  unto  them  is  fulfilled 
the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  which  saith  : 

"  By  hearing  ye  shall  hear  and  shall  in  no  wise  under- 
stand ; 

And  seeing  ye  shall  see,  and  shall  in  no  wise  perceive : 
For  this  people's  heart  is  waxed  gross, 
And  their  ears  are  dull  of  hearing 
And  their  eyes  they  have  closed 
Lest  haply  they  should  perceive  with  their  eyes 
And  hear  with  their  ears 
And  understand  with  their  heart." 

History  tells  many  of  its  lessons  in  dark  pic- 
tures. But  in  the  face  of  these  sad  but  undeni- 
able witnesses  what  have  we  to  say  of  progress  ? 
If  this  be  the  repeated  verdict  of  history  fronj 


204     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

the  Israel  of  Isaiah  to  the  Israel  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  from  the  Christianity  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the 
Christianity  of  to-day,  what  is  to  become  of  the 
race  that  kills  its  prophets  and  stones  those  sent 
unto  her  ?  Is  not  this  a  hopeless  world  ? 

For  our  answer  let  us  turn  again  to  the  atti- 
tude of  Jesus.  To-day  He  overlooks  the  city  and 
bitterly  laments.  And  yet  to-morrow  we  hear 
His  confident  voice  ring  out  through  the  cor- 
ridors of  the  high  priest's  hall,  "  Before  this 
generation  pass  away,  ye  shall  see  the  Son  of 
Man  coming  in  glory  and  power."  What  is  the 
ground  of  this  sublime  assurance  ? 

Likewise  if  we  turn  again  to  the  pages  of  the 
prophets  we  find  alternating  hope.  The  proph- 
et's ground  of  hope  is  that  he  has  found  in  Israel 
a  little  group  of  souls  with  open  ears  and  sus- 
ceptible hearts  and  willing  minds.  Every  prophet 
had  his  little  school.  Isaiah  gathers  these  up 
and  calls  them  the  "  Servant  of  Jehovah." 

So  Jesus  had  His  little  band  of  faithful  souls. 
He  beholds  from  the  cross  a  John,  a  Mary,  a 
Joseph  of  Arimathea. 

The  entrance  to  the  way  of  truth  is  straight 
and  narrow,  but  still  a  few  do  find  it.  While 
the  many  called  have  deafened  ears,  a  few  are 
chosen.  These  form  the  connecting  bridges  for 
the  transmission  of  truth  from  age  to  age.  Here 
is  the  reality  of  apostolic  succession.  The  Church 
that  slew  its  unknown  visitants  was  not  the 


The  Unknown  Visitation  205 

Church.  It  only  arrogated  to  itself  the  name. 
These  fewer  open-hearted  men  have  been  the 
true  Church  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Through  these  do  the  rejected  prophecies  of 
one  age  become  the  truths  of  God  to  the  next. 
Each  succeeding  generation  has  builded  sepul- 
chres to  the  prophets  whom  their  fathers  stoned 
and  slew,  and  has  said,  "  If  we  had  been  in  the 
days  of  our  fathers,  we  should  not  have  been 
partakers  with  them  in  the  prophets'  blood/1 
Thus  are  Sauls  converted  into  Pauls.  The  stone 
which  the  builders  of  to-day  reject  becomes  to- 
morrow the  head  of  the  corner. 

The  history  of  both  Church  and  world  reveals 
significant  lessons  here.  The  judgment  of  one 
day  is  the  reversal  of  its  predecessor's  verdict. 
The  relative  judgments  on  Charles  the  First 
and  Oliver  Cromwell  furnish  a  most  striking 
instance.  For  more  than  two  centuries  the  right 
and  the  greatness  of  the  king  were  asserted 
against  the  alleged  wrong  and  the  falseness  of 
the  Man  of  Iron.  Within  the  last  half  century 
the  verdict  has  been  universally  reversed.  When 
Plato  died,  the  academy  refused  to  elect  Aris- 
totle as  his  successor.  Aristotle  had  to  wait  for 
an  age  beyond  his  own. 

Thus  has  the  light  appeared  unto  one  genera- 
tion and  been  hidden  by  it,  because  it  knew  not 
the  day  of  its  visitation,  but  only  to  be  uncovered 
by  the  next.  One  age  has  cast  forth  its  prophets 


206     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

in  the  darkness  of  the  night  for  its  successor  to 
discover  in  the  morning  sun. 

With  the  great  host  of  mankind  the  cause  is 
indifference.  Most  men  know  nothing  of  the 
signs  of  the  time.  Most  churches  do  not.  Pilate 
is  busy  with  his  intrigues,  Herod  involved  in  his 
licentious  orgies,  others  busy  with  their  farms 
and  merchandise,  asking  no  other  questions  than 
"  What  shall  we  eat  and  what  shall  we  drink  and 
wherewithal  shall  we  be  clothed?"  The  most 
priceless  and  immortal  truths  of  heaven  fall  un- 
heeded and  unheard  upon  the  babel  of  earth's 
petty  shouts  and  sounds. 

Within  the  Church  too  often  it  is  a  blind  rejec- 
tion. Jesus  reverses  the  traditions  of  the  elders, 
He  upsets  accustomed  ideas,  and  makes  men  fear 
by  startling  them.  For  this  the  truth  is  resolutely 
shut  out  and  its  proclaimer  silenced. 

Thus  it  was  with  the  superb  commanding 
figure  of  the  ages,  unheeded  by  an  age  and 
church  that  knew  not  the  day  of  its  visitation,  or 
the  things  belonging  to  its  peace  and  progress. 
Thus  in  each  succeeding  age  and  church  have 
those  who  reflected  His  ineffable  light  been  put 
to  shame  and  silence  by  a  blind  humanity  and  an 
inhospitable  church. 

The  attitude  of  our  times  is  much  the  same. 
New  light  is  coming  upon  the  horizon  of  to-day. 
We  also  have  our  prophets.  The  great  mass  of 
men  within  our  churches  are  not  in  touch  with 


The  Unknown  Visitation  207 

the  world's  best  and  highest  thought.  Sadder 
still  is  it  that  so  many,  when  the  reflections  of 
these  great  souls  are  cast  upon  them,  resolutely 
close  their  eyes  and  say  without  a  moment's 
thought  or  reflection,  "  We  will  not  that  He  should 
reign  over  us."  Only  a  few  years  ago  a  rela- 
tively insignificant  church  heard  as  a  candidate 
for  its  pulpit  and  passed  by  in  ignorant  disdain 
a  man  who  to-day  is  recognized  as  one  of  the 
profoundest  thinkers  upon  religion  in  America. 
They  knew  not  their  visitation. 

These  lessons  of  history  should  give  us  pause. 
For  our  age  has  its  prophets.  The  voice  of  the 
saintly  Martineau  still  lingers  on  the  air.  A 
Drummond  left  us  but  yesterday  and  his  spirit  is 
still  here.  The  shadow  of  Phillips  Brooks  is  on 
us.  Let  us  be  willing  to  listen  to  living  voices. 
Let  us  be  heedful  how  we  turn  our  backs  to  the 
present  and  the  future.  Let  us  take  heed  that 
we  do  not  hand  down  to  our  children  the  task 
of  raising  monuments  over  the  graves  of  the 
prophets  unheeded  or  rejected  by  their  fathers. 
A  recast  of  history  may  well  allow  the  native 
hue  of  a  rejective  resolution  to  be  sicklied  o'er 
with  the  pale  cast  of  thought. 

One  of  our  most  significant  prerogatives  is  our 
choice  of  leaders.  Every  age  has  its  self-con- 
stituted teachers,  ordained  by  a  self-conceited  ig- 
norance, consecrated  to  a  darkened  mind,  unto 
whom  is  fulfilled  the  prophecy  of  Jesus,  "  Ye  take 


208     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

away  the  key  of  knowledge.  Ye  enter  not  in 
yourselves  and  them  that  would  enter  in  ye 
hinder."  The  verdict  of  self-repeating  history 
sends  out  again  the  warning  of  the  great  teacher 
of  the  Christian  faith  who,  when  teaching  things 
both  new  and  strange,  urged  upon  his  hearers, 
"  Take  heed  how  ye  hear." 

Does  this  seem  to  be  a  dark  and  doubtful 
view  ?  Must  we  linger  with  the  Master  weeping 
over  a  lost  church  ?  Or  may  we  follow  Him  upon 
the  morrow  and  hear  the  echo  in  our  own  souls 
of  His  triumphant  note  ?  There  is  this  hope  for 
our  own  age.  The  human  mind,  though  all  too 
slow  in  its  awakening,  has  in  every  instance 
finally  awakened  to  every  truth.  The  decision 
of  the  Greek  academy  was  at  last  reversed  and 
Aristotle  elected  to  his  rightful  place.  Each 
succeeding  age  does  and  will  build  sepulchres  to 
the  prophets  slain  by  its  fathers.  Let  us  revert 
again  to  the  sublime  strain  of  hope  in  every 
prophet's  message  and  experience.  Isaiah  re- 
joiced in  the  little  saving  remnant,  the  chosen 
few  with  open  ears  and  willing  hearts  who  did 
receive,  conserve,  interpret  and  hand  down  the 
truth.  The  Great  Master  left  His  priceless 
heritage  to  a  little  handful  of  devoted  followers. 
Later  there  was  the  little  band  of  Pilgrims,  flee- 
ing to  an  unknown  land  in  preservation  of  relig- 
ious liberty. 

So  the  prophets  of  our  time  are  gathering  to- 


The  Unknown  Visitation  209 

gether  a  few  Marys  and  Marthas  and  Johns. 
Every  Socrates  has  at  least  his  Plato,  and  every 
Plato  his  Aristotle.  These  are  the  leaven  of  the 
age.  This  is  the  true  apostolic  succession  of  the 
truth.  Many  within  the  Church  are  called  to  its 
highest  truth,  and  while  but  few  are  chosen, 
there  are  still  a  few.  Some  wise  men  have  seen 
the  star  in  the  East  and  hold  its  glittering  rays  in 
sight  that  they  may  be  guided  to  the  cradle  of 
truth. 

The  supreme  prerogative  of  human  personality 
is  the  prerogative  of  choice.  There  is  no  more 
solemn  choice  before  the  Church  than  the  selec- 
tion of  its  leaders.  There  is  danger  of  confusion. 
For  many  say,  "  Lo  here/1  and  "  Lo  there/'  It 
is  significant  in  our  study  of  the  period  of 
prophecy  in  Israel  that  in  every  case  the  false 
prophets  were  those  who  prophesied  that  which 
the  king  and  people  wanted.  The  true  were 
those  who  made  hard,  unwelcome  utterances. 
Clear  it  is,  at  least,  that  a  thing  may  not  be  the 
truth  because  we  want  to  hear  it.  There  are 
other  and  better  indications  that  we  may  follow. 
The  best  of  these  are  character  and  competency, 
seriousness  and  depth  ;  these  combined  qualities 
of  heart  and  mind.  If  we  were  to  ask,  What  is 
the  mark  of  a  worthy  teacher  and  leader  of  the 
people's  thought?  it  could  best  be  answered  in 
the  words  of  Jesus  to  Pilate :  "  To  this  end  have 
I  been  born  and  to  this  end  am  I  come  into 


2lo     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

the  world,  that  I  may  bear  witness  to  the 
truth.11 

I  have  a  fervent  faith  not  only  that  this  world 
was  in  the  hands  of  God  but  that  it  is  in  His  keep- 
ing. I  profoundly  believe  that,  in  its  thought,  it 
is  moving  onward.  I  must  believe  that  as  God 
spoke  to  His  prophets  of  every  other  generation, 
so  He  speaks  to  those  of  our  own ;  that  as  to 
every  one  of  them  He  gave  new  glimpses  of  the 
truth,  so  He  does  to-day.  I  cannot  believe  that 
God  is  dead,  nor  can  I  believe  that  He  is  the 
God  only  of  the  dead.  If  the  Holy  Spirit  spoke 
to  men  of  old,  so  it  must  to  men  of  our  age,  if 
God  still  be  God  and  this  be  still  His  world. 

If  this  be  true,  the  attitude  of  all  should  be  the 
attitude  of  listeners.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  in- 
telligent being  to  put  himself  in  touch  with  the 
highest  thought  and  to  seek  out  the  real  prophets 
of  his  time.  No  process  should  be  slower  than 
that  of  rejection.  For  whosoever  rejects  the 
truth  or  is  indifferent  to  the  truth  rejects  Jesus 
Christ  and  is  indifferent  to  the  Son  of  Man. 
"  Take  heed  how  ye  hear." 

The  centre  of  the  thought  of  our  time  is  upon 
the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  sublime  figure 
of  history,  the  supreme  teacher  of  all  time,  the 
transcendent  moral  ideal  of  the  race,  is  under  the 
search-light  of  human  thought.  To  all  this  no 
true  and  intelligent  follower  of  His  can  be  in- 
different. If  it  be  that  the  prophets  of  our  age 


The  Unknown  Visitation  211 

are  discovering  truths  about  His  Gospel  that 
have  not  been  seen  by  earlier  eyes  and  we  re- 
ject them,  we  reject  the  Son  of  God. 

It  is  this  little  remnant  of  earnest  seekers  for 
the  ultimate  realities  that  makes  for  the  perpet- 
uation of  His  life  and  truth.  No  school  or  sect 
confines  these  prophets. 

The  Holy  Spirit  is  not  dead.  It  is  not  with- 
drawn from  the  world  of  thought.  It  hovers 
over  the  reverent  souls  within  the  schools  who 
search  the  Scriptures.  It  is  with  the  deep  and 
serious  thinker  in  the  quiet  of  the  hour  of  mid- 
night oil.  Choose  well  the  molders  of  your 
thought.  It  is  the  supreme  function  of  the 
preacher  of  to-day  to  wisely  choose  his  teachers 
and  then  to  bring  his  people  to  their  feet.  Sad 
it  is  that  the  great  mass  of  the  Church  is  kept  so 
far  from  the  thought  of  the  best  thinkers,  that  so 
many  choose  blind  leaders. 

If  there  be  those  of  our  day  who  would  them- 
selves not  enter  in,  at  least  let  them  heed  how 
they  take  away  the  key  of  knowledge  and  hinder 
those  who  would.  The  Spirit  of  God  is  moving 
upon  the  waters  of  contemporary  thought.  The 
vision  of  truth  has  not  come  only  to  the  past. 
There  is  truth  and  glory  in  the  things  that  were ; 
there  is  more  of  truth  and  glory  in  the  things 
that  are ;  there  will  be  greater  truth  and  glory 
in  the  things  that  are  to  be.  God  is  not  only  the 
God  of  the  past  that  is  dead  but  of  the  present 


2 1 2     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

that  lives  and  moves  and  has  its  being  in  His 
eternal  life.  Take  heed,  take  heed,  lest  the  visi- 
tation come  and  go  and  be  unknown. 

Thus  the  voice  of  the  people  is  the  voice  of 
God  only  when  the  people  hear  and  echo  the 
messages  of  the  great  prophets  of  the  Spirit. 

Bring  Jesus  into  the  life  of  the  world  to-day, 
to  His  own  world  of  which  He  has  been  for  two 
thousand  years  the  moral  creator,  to  His  own 
Church,  and  men  would  call  His  sayings  "  hard 
sayings."  He  would  speak  to  deaf  ears,  He 
would  look  into  doubtful  countenances,  He  would 
find  fainting  hearts.  This  would  be  the  answer 
to  His  own  question,  "When  the  Son  of  Man 
cometh  shall  He  find  faith  on  the  earth  ?  " 

His  message  would  be  too  great  for  the  small 
minds  of  men.  Yea,  His  voice  does  speak,  but 
men  are  refusing  to  hear  Him.  Thus  the  world 
is  easily  misled  by  fraud  and  pretense.  Still 
more  are  good  men  and  women  willing  to  listen 
to  him  who  gives  them  the  easy  task ;  they  can 
appreciate  the  calculating  voice,  understand 
shallow  personalities  and  readily  appropriate 
little  ideals. 

But  the  really  great  message  deafens  them  ;  a 
great  burst  of  truth  is  blinding.  Therefore  the 
prophet's  voice  to-day  is  often  lost  upon  the 
chilly  atmosphere.  Or,  men  and  women  are 
willing  to  wave  palm  branches  for  the  Master  to- 
day, but  not  to  follow  Him  to  Calvary  to-morrow. 


The  Unknown  Visitation  213 

The  lesson  is  this.  The  Church  of  Christ  to- 
day is  hearing  a  new  message,  is  facing  a  new 
mission.  She  does  not  yet  see  it ;  her  face  is 
largely  towards  the  past.  But  she  too  has  her 
chosen  few,  whose  vision  is  becoming  large 
enough,  whose  spirit  brave  enough,  to  save  her 
from  her  own  blind,  sluggish  self.  There  are 
those  who  witness  this  day  of  her  visitation  ;  they 
will  hold  the  torch  of  truth  until  another  genera- 
tion shall  fulfill,  to-morrow,  the  vision  of  her 
prophets  of  to-day. 


XVI 

THE  EVERLASTING  REALITY  OF  RELIGION 

THE  title  of  this  chapter  is  the  phrase  of 
a  great  scientist,  one  who  was  a  rever- 
ent worshipper  as  well  as  a  profound 
thinker.     It  is  simply  the  echo  of  the  words  of 
Simon   Peter,  when  the  Master  asked  His  dis- 
ciples if  they  were  to  forsake  Him.     "  Lord,  to 
whom  shall  we  go?    Thou  hast  the  words  of 
eternal  life." 

In  the  religion  of  Jesus  we  find  the  sense  of 
finality,  of  ultimate  reality,  and  thus  of  last  re- 
sort. The  knowledge,  the  sense  and  the  reality 
of  the  infinite  lie  behind  our  moral  universe. 
Human  life,  without  this  consciousness,  is  vain 
and  void.  In  the  last  analysis  it  is  without 
meaning  and  interpretation,  unless  with  the 
psalmist  we  can  say,  "  In  Thy  light  do  we  see 
light."  This  comes  to  us  often  as  the  sense  of  a 
great  necessity.  In  the  case  of  Simon  Peter,  he 
had  become  conscious  that  Jesus  had  become  an 
absolute  necessity  to  the  life  of  the  disciples. 

How  often  we  find  this  to  be  true  of  the  mas- 
ter spirits  who  live  among  us,  of  our  great  proph- 
ets, of  our  spiritual  men.  We  neglect  them,  we 
forget  them,  we  do  not  realize  that  we  could  not 

214 


The  Everlasting  Reality  of  Religion    215 

live  without  them,  but  by  and  by  there  comes 
some  moral,  spiritual  crisis.  Then  it  is  that  we 
realize  the  spiritual  man  as  the  lord  of  life,  we 
look  for  one  who  is  capable  of  dealing  with  the 
spirits  and  souls  of  things.  Our  humanity,  in  its 
relation  to  such  spirits,  is  like  the  thoughtless, 
wayward  son  and  the  patient  father. 

There  is  no  substitute  for  religion.  We  can- 
not live  in  the  human  without  the  assurance  of 
the  divine.  Religion  is  not  a  mere  epoch  in  the 
upward  rise  of  man.  It  is  an  everlasting  reality. 
We  may  outgrow  religions  but  not  religion.  We 
may  outgrow  our  faiths,  but  not  our  faith. 

It  is  not  easy  to  define  religion ;  it  is  evasive 
because  it  is  so  all  pervading.  It  is  the  life  of 
God  in  the  soul  of  man,  the  sense  of  the  divine 
guiding  the  human,  the  consciousness  of  the  spir- 
itual meaning  and  reality  of  life.  It  is  the  reali- 
zation that  above  us,  beyond  us,  and  yet  about  us, 
there  is  a  spiritual  order  in  which  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being. 

Religion  itself  is  essentially  changeless,  abid- 
ing. It  is  not  subject  to  the  processes  of  substi- 
tution. Theology,  the  Bible,  the  Gospel  itself, 
these  are  expressions  of  religion,  these  are  ever 
changing,  but  each  change  is  merely  a  new  re- 
turn to  religion. 

Man  is  by  nature  religious.  It  is  not  some- 
thing unnatural  and  abnormal.  The  sovereign 
action  of  the  universe  upon  man  is  the  appeal  of 


2l6     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

the  infinite  affection  to  conscience,  love  and  faith. 
The  supremely  surpassing  reaction  of  the  human 
soul  upon  the  universe  is  its  response  to  this  in- 
finite appeal.  Prayer  is  one  of  the  most  natural 
attitudes  of  the  human  spirit.  Take  the  life  of 
Jesus  as  the  revelation  of  our  human  nature  at 
its  highest  and  its  best.  His  life  breathes  relig- 
ion. His  personal  influence  is  religion. 

There  are  many  reasons  why  religion  is  an 
everlasting  reality.  It  comprehends  the  ideal. 
It  is  true  that  we  try  to  live  without  ideals,  but 
we  also  realize  that  such  lives  are  failures.  Re- 
ligion is  the  comprehension  of  moral  ideals.  In 
proportion  as  we  rise  above  the  actual  to  the 
ideal,  in  any  sphere  of  life,  we  blend  the  human 
and  the  divine.  Religion  then  will  not  be  gone, 
so  long  as  moral  and  spiritual  ideals  remain. 

The  religious  sense  is  an  everlasting  reality 
because  it  is  also  the  sum  of  all  our  motives. 
Behind  and  beyond  all  that  we  say  or  do  are  the 
great  truths  we  believe,  the  lofty  consecrations 
we  make,  the  impulse  of  our  actions.  Back  of 
all  effects  are  the  moral  causes  in  our  souls.  The 
background  of  all  the  incidents  of  life  is  the  great 
principle  of  living.  When  we  are  at  our  moral 
heights  we  are  asking,  Are  my  thoughts  pure,  my 
motives  unselfish,  my  purpose  lofty?  Religion 
is  another  name  for  the  reality  of  sincerity. 

Religion  is  an  everlasting  reality,  because  it  is 
the  interpreter  of  life.  Our  commonest  human 


The  Everlasting  Reality  of  Religion     217 

living  is  radiant  with  invisible,  ideal  beauty. 
Take  anything — motherhood,  wifehood.  When 
we  come  to  idealize,  we  discover  that  these  as- 
sociations are  fraught  with  divine  and  holy  mean- 
ing. Religion  is  the  sense,  the  consciousness  of 
this  meaning,  the  final  interpreter  of  human  life. 

No  human  problem  receives  its  satisfactory  an- 
swer except  by  the  light  of  the  divine.  As  the 
psalmist  put  it :  "  Not  until  I  went  into  the  sanc- 
tuary of  God  did  I  understand."  Human  life  is 
clear,  without  any  need  of  interpretation,  to  only 
two  classes  of  human  beings.  First  to  those  who 
do  not  think  at  all  and  second,  to  those  who  think 
reverently  and  deeply.  To  those  in  between,  it 
is  full  of  moral  difficulties.  Science  may  find 
some  understanding  of  God  through  man  and 
nature,  but  it  can  never  fully  understand  man  ex- 
cept by  ks  knowledge  of  the  Infinite.  Light  and 
understanding  come  to  us  not  only  from  our 
knowledge  of  the  things  beneath  us  ;  it  must  also 
shine  down  upon  us.  Religion  is  the  only  final 
explanation  and  interpretation  of  the  universal 
human  order. 

Some  substitutes  have  been  proposed  for  re- 
ligion, as,  for  example,  morals.  But  morality  ex- 
ists only  in  the  realm  of  motive.  The  two  sad- 
dest things  in  human  life  are  the  separation  of  re- 
ligion from  ethics  and  the  separation  of  ethics 
from  religion.  The  relation  between  the  two  is 
that  of  cause  and  effect.  Morality  is  obedience 


2i8     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

to  law,  but  we  know  that  all  human  law  is  im- 
perfect, except  as  it  is  the  law  of  God.  Religion 
and  morality  are  one  and  inseparable  now  and 
forever.  When  the  divine  sanction  is  gone, 
moral  obligation  inevitably  follows.  Such  is  not 
only  the  verdict  of  philosophy,  but  the  story  of 
human  history. 

The  true  relation  between  religion  and  morals 
is  that  of  inspiration  and  action,  vision  and  serv- 
ice, holy  thinking  and  godly  living.  Thus  the 
one  cannot  live  without  the  other.  In  a  well-or- 
dered life  the  deeper  man's  experiences  become 
in  the  realm  of  the  temporal  the  profounder  is 
his  faith  in  the  eternal.  Deep  calleth  unto  deep. 
The  more  we  love  God,  the  more  we  shall  love 
our  fellow  men.  The  more  that  we  love  truth 
the  truer  we  shall  be.  The  more  we  feel  the 
divine,  the  more  do  we  become  truly  human. 

Thus  man  comes  to  himself  and  realizes  him- 
self in  religion.  Not  until  he  cries,  "  Search  me, 
O  God,  and  know  my  heart,  try  me  and  know 
my  thoughts/'  does  he  search  and  feel  and  know 
himself.  The  secret  place  of  the  Most  High  is 
the  inmost  soul  of  man.  Not  until  we  find  God 
do  we  find  ourselves.  The  deepest  in  us  is  the 
reflection  of  the  Infinite.  All  our  better  loves, 
our  higher  aspirations,  are  the  answers  of  our 
nature  to  the  spirit  of  the  Eternal. 

How  deeply  Jesus  felt  it,  this  truth  that  within 
our  spiritual  natures  our  personalities  of  earth 


The  Everlasting  Reality  of  Religion    219 

and  heaven  might  inextricably  twine  and  indis- 
solubly  blend.  "  Thou,  Father,  art  in  Me  and  I 
in  Thee."  This  is  another  definition  of  religion 
and  another  revelation  of  its  everlasting  reality. 
In  all  these  relations  we  find  religion  to  be  the 
very  heart  of  things. 

Another  reason  that  religion  will  never  die  is 
because  man's  interests  are  eternal.  There  are 
the  experiences  of  suffering  and  sorrow,  the  bear- 
ing of  the  heavy  burdens  of  life.  They  come 
some  time  to  all  of  us.  In  these  hours,  if  in  no 
others,  when  we  face  life  and  look  within  our- 
selves, we  cry  with  Peter,  "To  whom  shall  we  go?" 

Is  there  then  any  power  beside  religion  to 
bring  life  up  to  its  highest  and  best  ?  Is  there  any 
substitute  for  it  ?  Is  not  religion  life  itself  ?  Have 
we  no  human  limitations  ?  Must  not  the  finite 
reach  out  to  the  Infinite  for  its  living  and  being? 

If  our  life  is  to  have  length,  must  it  not  stretch 
outward  ?  If  it  is  to  have  height,  must  it  not 
reach  upward  ?  If  it  is  to  have  depth,  must  it 
not  be  deeper  than  itself  ?  If  religion  is  the  sum 
of  all  ideals  and  motives,  the  background  and 
the  interpretation,  the  cause  of  which  morality  is 
the  effect,  if  it  is  our  true  self-realization,  if  man's 
needs  are  infinite,  are  not  men  very  shallow  who 
talk  to-day  of  the  passing  of  religion  ? 

Perhaps,  we  are  saying,  this  is  a  broad  and 
unusual  definition  of  religion.  This  has  nothing 
to  do  with  church  religion,  or  with  religious 


22O     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

institutions.     May  not   these   pass   away?     Let 
us  look  at  this  for  a  moment. 

In  the  history  of  Israel  we  find  a  certain  essen- 
tial relation  between  the  sacred  temple  of  Jeru- 
salem and  the  religious  life  of  the  nation.  In 
proportion  as  they  were  removed  from  the  cen- 
tral sanctuary,  they  lost  their  spiritual  integrity. 
It  is  true  that  the  school  is  not  education.  The 
boy  in  the  class  room  at  college  might  learn  his 
lessons  in  his  own  room.  It  is  equally  true  that 
the  church  is  not  religion.  But  under  human 
associations,  there  is  a  reality  between  form  and 
spirit,  between  institutions  and  culture.  It  is 
true  that  some  men  who  never  go  to  college  are 
better  educated  than  some  who  do.  It  is  true 
that  there  are  many  people  in  the  church  not  so 
religious  as  those  without  But  let  us  not  de- 
ceive ourselves  by  the  "  unsupported  therefore," 
by  generalizing  from  the  particular.  The  simple 
facts  are  that  a  waning  church  means  a  loss  in 
religious  influence.  It  is  true  that  forms  and 
expressions  have  no  value  without  life.  Is  it  not 
equally  true  that  life  expresses  itself  through 
forms?  At  any  rate,  for  most  of  us,  there  is 
some  relation  between  the  two.  We  should  not 
expect  literature  to  flourish  without  its  school. 
We  recognize  that  art  is  largely  dependent  upon 
its  galleries.  Imagine,  if  you  can,  a  city  with  no 
church.  How  long  would  it  be  the  habitation  of 
religion  ? 


The  Everlasting  Reality  of  Religion     221 

Our  day  and  generation  is  one  of  sad  neglect, 
but  the  world  will  come  back.  Our  world  of 
to-day,  more  than  anything  else,  is  restless,  and 
it  will  come  to  say  with  Augustine,  "  Thou  hast 
made  us  for  Thyself,  and  our  souls  are  restless 
until  they  find  their  rest  in  Thee." 

Many  a  time  have  I  seen  a  little  child  sur- 
rounded by  his  toys.  So  interested  is  he  in  them 
that  for  the  time  he  forgets  the  mother  and  feels 
no  need  of  her.  But  I  know  that  by  and  by  the 
toys,  one  by  one,  will  be  cast  aside,  and  he  will 
turn  to  his  mother.  Thus 

"  We  older  children  grope  our  way, 
From  dark  behind  to  dark  before, 
And  only  when  our  hands  we  lay, 
Dear  Lord,  in  Thine,  the  night  is  day." 

If  thus  we  face  the  world  thoughtfully  and 
then  we  face  the  Master  who  is  the  sovereign 
revelation  of  religion,  we  shall  ask  with  Peter, 
"  To  whom  shall  we  go  ?  " 

"  Here  let  us  pause,  our  quest  forego, 
Enough  for  us  to  feel  and  know 
That  He  in  whom  the  cause  and  end. 
The  past  and  future  meet  and  blend, 
Speaks  not  alone  the  words  of  fate 
Which  worlds  destroy  and  worlds  create ; 
But  whispers  in  my  spirit's  ear 
In  tones  of  love,  or  warning  fear, 
A  language  none  beside  may  hear. 
To  Him  from  wanderings  long  and  wild 
I  come,  an  overwearied  child/' 


222     Spiritual  Culture  and  Social  Service 

"  He  went  out  into  a  mountain  to  pray,  and 
continued  all  night  in  prayer  to  God. 

"And  when  it  was  day  .  .  .  He  came 
down  .  .  .  and  stood  in  the  plain  .  .  . 
there  went  virtue  out  of  Him,  and  healed  them 
all.11 

Thus,  with  the  Master,  he  who  does  the  work 
of  an  unselfish  ministry  in  the  daylight  hours 
must  find  his  way  back,  at  eventide,  to  the 
sources  of  his  refuge  and  his  strength ;  there  is 
no  lasting,  perfected  social  service  without  its 
commensurate  spiritual  culture,  and  the  one  will 
be  as  real  and  abiding  as  the  other  is  deep  and 
reverent. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  Amerk* 


THE  MINISTER  AND  HIS  WORK 

THISELTON  MARK,  D.Lit. 

The  Pedagogics  of  Preaching 

Ai  Short  Essay  in  Practical  Homiletics.   Net  goc, 

Much  has  been  done  for  the  Teacher  in  showing  him 
the  practical  application  in  his  work  of  the  findings  of  the 
new  Psychology,  but  comparatively  little  has  been  done  in 
the  field  of  "Psychology  and  Preaching."  This  scholarly  and 
yet  popular  book  applies  to  the  art  of  Breaching  methods 
which  have  long  been  followed  in  the  training  of  teachers. 

FRANK  W.  GUNSAULUS,  P.P. 

The  Minister  and  The  Spiritual  Life 

Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching  for  1911.    Net  $1.25. 

Among  the  phases  of  this  vital  subject  treated  by  the 
pastor  of  The  Central  Church,  Chicago,  are:  The  Spiritual 
Life  and  Its  Expression  in  and  Through  Ministering;  The 
Spiritual  Life  in  View  of  Changes  in  Philosophical  and 
Ideological  View-Points;  The  Spiritual  Life  in  Its  Rela- 
tion to  Truth  and  Orthodoxy;  The  Spiritual  Life  and 
Present  Social  Problems,  etc. 

PROF.  A.   T.  ROBERTSON,  P.P. 

The  Glory  of  the  Ministry 

Paul's  Exultation  in  Preaching.    Cloth,  net  $1.25. 

Rev.  F.  B.  Meyer  says:  "I  think  it  is  the  best  of  all 

your  many  books  and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal.  Its  il- 
luminating references  to  the  Greek  text,  its  graphic  por- 
traiture of  the  great  Apostle,  its  allusions  to  recent  liter- 
ature and  current  events^  its  pointed^  and  helpful  instruc- 
tions to  the  ministry  combine  to  give  it  very  special  value." 

SAMUEL  CHARLES  BLACK,  P.P. 

Building  a  Working  Church 

I2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 

Every  pastor  or  church  officer  no  matter  how  successful 
he  may  be,  will  find  practical,  vital  suggestions  for  strength- 
ening some  weak  place  in  his  present  organization.  The  au- 
thor makes  every  chapter  bear  directly  upon  some  specific 
phase  of  the  church  building  problem, 

WILLIAM  E.  BARTON,  P.  P. 

Rules  of  Order  for  Religious  Assemblies 

i8mo,  cloth,  net  soc. 

TTiis  work  is  entirely  undenominational  and  will  be 
found  adapted  to  use  in  any  religious  assembly  whethe* 
church,  council,  association  or  convention. 


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CHARLES  G.    TRUMBULL 

Messages  for  the  Morning  Watch 

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The  value  of  these  morning  messages  from  the  pen  o£ 
the  editor  of  The  Sunday  School  Times  will  be  found  it* 
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dently written  out  of  a  heart  experience  in  connection  with 
devout  personal  study,  they  throb  with  life. 

PROF.   J.    SHERMAN  WALLACE 

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Daily  Path."  The  result  is  a  very  unusual  little  guide  to 
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ENOCH  E.  BYRUM 

The  Secret  of  Prayer 

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